


And I See Fire, Blood In the Breeze (and I hope that you remember me)

by LuckyGun



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Aftermath of Violence, All Magic Comes With a Price, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brothers, Fear makes people stupid, Feral Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Feral Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Fangs, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Insecure Jaskier | Dandelion, Is Jaskier Immortal?, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Jaskier | Dandelion, Racism, Roach is the Best (The Witcher), Self-Esteem Issues, Silver for Monsters, Steel for Humans, Superstition, Temporary Amnesia, Timeline What Timeline, Torture, Witcher Signs (The Witcher), no beta we die like renfri, we may never know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-08
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 38,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26899246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LuckyGun/pseuds/LuckyGun
Summary: All magic has a price – this is something as true of Signs as any other spell. Following an exhausting fight, racist villagers capture the injured Witcher and bard, Geralt locked in irons while Jaskier is treated by a mage. Determined to release the human of the mutant’s thrall by any means necessary, the villagers turn to extreme measures. Jaskier must fight through chaotic amnesia and newly learned fears to save someone he doesn’t remember.Or: Geralt gets his facial scars, adds a few more elsewhere to his collection, and tries to stay alive long enough for Jaskier to remember that they aren’t friends, but brothers.
Comments: 45
Kudos: 168





	1. Fire and Blood

**Author's Note:**

> Head cannon is as follows: Geralt has slight fangs that are just inhuman enough to be called such; Jaskier can be quite feral and scrappy but it breaks his artist’s heart to cause pain to any creature, human or otherwise; Geralt refuses to call the bard his friend to protect him; silver isn’t just for monsters and steel isn't just for humans; Jaskier’s personality is mostly pulled from the TV show, Geralt's facial scars deserve a better backstory than a cockatrice; who knows how old Jaskier really is and why.

There was something very different about the Leshen across the clearing.

Most of the time, they were voracious hunters, true monsters, living only to kill any who breached the forest wall. They would destroy anything intruding in their realm with a vengeance, often bringing their rage against all things unlucky enough to get in the way. Between their strength and the very wildlife and trees that responded to their calls, not much could stop them from painting their spikes and antlers with blood and gore.

Which is why the Leshen he faced was so very strange.

It could have attacked him ten times already. It could have made root and beak and tooth drive into his skull. It could have disappeared into a pillar of smoke and vanished, out of sight and out of range.

It did nothing.

In fact, it had barely moved since Geralt had stumbled across its lair like a blind child. It seemed to stare at him from the cavernous maws that made up its face, the grotesque deer skull cocked to the side, almost curious but for the sheer malice that tainted the air. Gritting his teeth, the Witcher kept his silver blade loosely crossed in front of him and ignored the vibrations of his Wolf’s Head against his armor. He was growling at the pendant nearly as much as his quarry, annoyed. He knew there was magic here, something deep and welling from the relict staring sightlessly at him.

Or at least, he was fairly certain there was.

The silver medallions were themselves not fully understood. Cast with magic and forge, their uses were primarily to identify the Guild and School Witchers hailed from, and mostly vibrated in the presence of sorcery and chaotic power. The slight shift was usually enough to warn even the most distracted Witcher that there was something dangerous nearby.

Not always, though.

He’d carried the medallion long enough to know it could do more. Silver and enchanted, the chain and pendant itself protected his throat from monstrous attacks. Relics lost to memory and time would emit a soft glow as he walked past, the emanations just visible to his enhanced eyes. And in the rarest of cases, it would vibrate when he found himself at a crossroads, morally or otherwise, warning him that there were consequences unforeseen surrounding him.

Fickle, the thing was, and he had no idea what was causing it to tremble against his chest now.

When the Leshen lashed out with roots like whips, he found himself unable to ponder the situation further. It only took one of his slow heartbeats to sink into a familiar pattern. It wasn’t the first time he’d fought one of these creatures – far from it, as he’d brought down two in the last season – but it was the first time he’d engaged in a battle with another pulse pounding in his ears. The rapid thud came from only a few dozen meters behind him, almost drowned out by hitched breaths, and Geralt cursed loudly.

It was an accident, finding this Leshen. There was no contract here, nothing more than the utterly humiliating fact that he’d finally given in to his companion’s constant nagging about returning to their room at the inn. He had decided to cut through the forest instead of sticking to the paths, eager to return, as well, if only to ensure Roach was safely where he’d stabled her. The jaunt into the wilds had been for nothing more than hunting game, a pastime that had saved them a bit of coin on food. The fortunate side effect of temporarily escaping the townspeople’s racist and near-violent attitudes was a bonus. Their song hadn’t changed even after Geralt had dealt with the horde of drowners and rotfiends which had taken up residence in the nearby bog. So they’d hunted – rather, Jaskier had sat tuning his lute while Geralt dressed a young buck who’d fallen to his trap – and eaten their fill, selling the rest on the road to a hungry farmer and his family. The sun was still high enough that he didn’t much fear anything in the woods this close to the village.

He was a fool.

They had let them go too easily – he knew that. He knew there was something beyond the usual anger and distrust towards his kind. It was obvious in the deep frowns of the men, the pinched faces of the women, the old fear in the children hiding behind skirts. There was terror in the village, yes, but not solely of him or the necrophages he’d dispatched. And it was old, a multigenerational shadow that had settled firmly over the small village of Ursten. Not even their relative proximity to Novigrad or the enthusiasm and optimism of the Witcher Ballads that fell from Jaskier’s mouth could sway that fear. He should have known at that point that there was something considerably more ill in the wilds than the necrophages.

Twice a fool, then.

So Jaskier was with him, pressed against a thick birch’s trunk at the edge of the clearing, nothing more than a simple silver dagger in his hands for protection. That flimsy thing wouldn’t do anything against the Leshen itself, provided no protection against the ravens flocking overhead, and wouldn’t defend well enough against the wolves that were circling them restlessly. The bard couldn’t run – they would catch him – and he couldn’t ride a horse that was two leagues away. And no matter how much he valued Roach’s insistence on responding to his whistle even across oceans, he didn’t doubt the reality of the fact that the mare would not be coming this time.

He’d fucked up.

The unfamiliar sensation of shame was flooding him. His armor was made of thickened leather and steel, a master craftsman ensuring it was light but strong, allowing him economy of movement and speed. But he still felt weighed down by it, his steps almost stumbling through the thick grass. He bit out a harsh curse as he jumped back almost too late, preoccupied but avoiding a clawed hand that sought to topple his head from his shoulders. Inside his gloves, his palms were slick. There was an uncomfortable prickle as sweat beaded on his forehead and slipped down his face. The sun wasn’t terribly warm, but it still felt like hellfire beating down on him.

Anger caused this, an emotion he well knew.

The breeze of a passing attack soothed his skin for a moment, the long hair on the sides of his head almost drying in the wake of the miss. At the base of his neck, the gathered locks stayed bound in its tie, thankfully remaining out of his face, and he grunted as he parried an extrinsic attack. Two ravens fell in pieces, one sharpened toe slicing through him easily. A waterfall of blood dripped over his right eye and he grimaced against the startling sting. A sudden snap of jaws and claws from the side took him to the ground, the bracer on his right arm taking the brunt of the attack. It took him a moment to twist enough to get his sword into the warg’s gut, and by the time he stood, there was another new bite of pain on his face across the bridge of his nose.

The Leshen hesitated for a moment, and Geralt exhaled heavily, shifting his blade from his right hand to his left. The burning throb in his forearm proved his fear – the bones were cracked, though not fully broken – and he ground his teeth at the abrupt weariness that swamped his system. He’d been fighting for an hour, now. It didn’t seem that long; gods knew he had suffered more extended fights. But the Leshen was growing stronger as daylight waned and twilight began to creep upon them. In other fights, any other situation, he was able to move without much strategy beyond self-preservation and drawing more blood than his enemy. Now, that was impossible.

It was obvious that there was a modicum of intelligence in the monster. It had tested his defenses at first, checked his reach, and then dipped towards the human at the edge of the woods with an otherworldly chirp. The brutal attack Geralt had launched at that point had surprised both himself and the bard. Even as the Leshen began to backpedal, the Witcher had stayed close to the other man, glancing at him over his shoulder to ensure his welfare.

That act had set the tone for the entire fight. He knew it would, knew he’d fucked up yet again. But even Vesemir’s shouted warnings in his memory couldn’t stop him from keeping himself between the human and Leshen for the rest of the fight. It was a decision he regretted, if only for the need. The bard had followed him for years, now – protecting him was as secondary an act as breathing. And Jaskier wasn’t entirely incapable himself. During some less monstrous, more ordinary attacks, he’d successfully defended his life from bandits and highwaymen with his lute as a shield and his sharp dagger dancing like a silverfish in the air. He never killed, though. He left that painful decision or task to Geralt, once it was determined if sparing their attackers wouldn’t conversely enable their own demise. And then there’d be either some sullen silence as the romance of travelling died a little more, or a loud and boisterous cry regarding his ruined clothing.

But this was nothing Jaskier could handle, nothing he could survive, and so the decision made was one stood for wholeheartedly.

Geralt blew out a sharp breath between his teeth. His side was aching from one particularly vicious hit he hadn’t quite managed to deflect, but he forced himself to acknowledge it. Pain was easy – it was something he could predict and compartmentalize and control, so long as it was addressed. But his fr-, no _Jaskier_ , he had no such training.

The only way to make sure the bard came to no harm was to finish the fight quickly. But against this creature, he wasn’t confident he could do so without help. He was competent enough to recognize that he was gradually being pushed back and overwhelmed by sheer force and numbers. So when he had pressed the Leshen back to a stagger, his hand darted to the pouch on his hip that held a selection of small vials. Clutching three in a tight fist, Geralt tore the corks off with a flash of his fangs and poured them down his throat with abandon, almost choking on the instant burning.

Shrike. Rebis’ Blizzard. Tawny Owl.

It was a dangerous combination, an emergency grouping he’d only used once before. The Shrike shared pain between combatants, an aggravating discomfort to him but debilitating to the Leshen, while the Blizzard brewed with Rebis boosted his reflexes and speed. The Tawny Owl increased his stamina, allowing him to suffer the effects of the other two potions while staying a half step ahead of the detractions they forced upon him. The mix forced the toxicity in his blood to the top of his threshold in two breaths.

Dangerous.

Dangerous, but necessary.

Senses heightened, eyes like midnight and skin like snow, Geralt snarled at the molten steel crawling through his bones and veins. Lunging forward with his silver sword, he spun through a flurry of attacks and dodges, one ear ceaselessly trained on the human behind him. It was more difficult than he remembered to push through the Shrike pulsing through him, and he cursed himself his weakness. This would be too close, and he couldn’t _afford_ close. The taste of defeat, he was acquainted with well enough. He did not succeed in every contract he accepted. He had scars upon his skin that were due to miscalculations and mistakes. He could survive losing this fight, so long as he was able to retreat. But he _couldn’t_ retreat. Not successfully, not while hauling the bard along with him. There was winning, or dying. There was no grey area.

Nothing prepared him for the sudden gasp of shock behind him.

No vibrating medallion or Witcher senses or supernatural prediction could have warned him it was coming. Nor could he have done anything to adequately prepare himself for the sight he whirled upon.

Jaskier was no longer huddled in the relative safety of the shadow of the birch. Instead, roots had snaked up and out of the ground, twisting around his ankles and arms, pulling him down and into the lowering light of the clearing with no gentleness. There were barbs along the wooden limbs, and they sliced along his skin effortlessly, flaying open his arms and shoulders as they climbed higher towards his throat.

The silver dagger laid forgotten in the grass.

The bard’s blue eyes were wide and terrified, his mouth hanging open in shock, and he managed to raise one constricted arm slightly, reaching for the Witcher.

Who was frozen, voided eyes glittering, hand loose around the hilt of his sword, as he watched the bard – _his friend_ , he so often refused to acknowledge – grow covered in thorned wood.

What burst forth from the White Wolf’s chest was a howl eerily reminiscent of his namesake, followed by a dangerous open mouth roar that promised blood. Even nearly feral with fear and rage and toxins, Geralt’s mind focused on the problem cleanly.

Kill the Leshen, erase the danger.

The ferocity of his movements was nearly tactile, a force of nature on its own, and he lashed out at the relict with bared teeth and flowing anger. But even as the seconds ticked by and his blade cut into the creature again and again, it wasn’t enough.

Behind him, he heard Jaskier’s breathless scream, the sound raising the hairs on the back of his neck like a dog’s hackles, and he pushed himself harder. He switched his sword back to his dominant hand – he was strong in both, though he had a firmer overhead with his right. When the blade crashed into the solid wooden form before him, the bones in his right arm audibly snapped. Hissing in pain, Geralt jerked back, almost dropping his weapon. He shifted it to his off hand again, instead, his forearm coming up of its own volition to press against his chest to try and protect it. Through the disorienting haze of overwhelming focus in a dizzy world, he heard the damned thing _laugh_. The monster before him was something older than an age, he realized far too belatedly, and born of magic. It was ancient, powerful, and, worst of all, vindictive.

As this revelation cooled his senses for a moment, the Leshen raised a stocky wooden arm and _cast a fucking spell._

Dodging the shadowy waves of unknown sorcery, Geralt immediately realized his mistake. He had been trying to protect Jaskier. By placing himself between Jaskier and the Leshen.

Driven by instinct and training and the potions in his blood, he _dodged_.

Time slowed.

Spinning on his heel, Geralt’s midnight gaze stared at the ripples of energy and chaos crossing the glen. They were unerringly aimed. Beyond them, unable to move, Jaskier’s struggles against the vines and limbs holding him had stilled, a low whimper of fear echoing through the still air. He was nearly entirely bound now, more blood sliding down his skin, and as the wave of energy crawled through the air towards him, he fixed his eyes on Geralt.

The trust there broke the Witcher.

He remembered one particular exchange with the bard, not too long before, in an inn that had shit beer and tepid water, yet the memory nevertheless warmed something deep inside him.

_“I need no one. And the last thing I want is someone needing me.”_

_“And yet, here we are.”_

Here they were, indeed.

Enhanced reflexes meant he could move fast, nearly faster than the eye could track. So he took full advantage and growled at destiny and fate and every bullshit thing in the world that dared to try to wipe the bard’s music from the world. He wouldn’t let it happen. Not today.

Geralt stabbed his silver sword into the ground before him and raised both hands in asymmetrical movements. Fingers crossed into Signs, the act as ingrained as a heartbeat, and with a hoarse shout, he threw his palms forward. Normally, he could only cast one Sign at a time, the pull at his core too strong to handle more, the recovery afterward varying depending on how much effort he’d expended upon it.

But now he had Shrike provoking his adrenaline, Blizzard allowing his hands to move quicker, and Tawny Owl deepening the well of his core to blue-black depths.

His right hand thrust towards the Leshen, a powerful blast of Axii stunning it long enough to be consumed by the absolute firewall of Igni that engulfed it immediately after; he didn’t even feel the grinding crunch in his bones at the motion. He didn’t register the sucking heat as the whole of the forest behind the monster lit up like old hay in a lightning storm. His left hand threw a circle of Yrden directly in front of the bard while a sun-bright Quen shield phased into immediate existence overtop his skin.

His fingers still moving, he performed an inverted Aard and shoved both hands forward with a strained shout, something inhuman, feeling and ignoring the nauseating sensation of something in his chest cracking.

_“Brother!”_

He didn’t know if he said it, or Jaskier, or both of them.

The malicious spell slowed, skimmed through the purple trap with another stagger, and it crashed upon Jaskier with less power, weakened by the Yrden on the ground.

But Quen was never made to defend against magical attacks. It was a chaos shield against physical blades and fists, but would wink out at the first touch of magic.

Geralt’s other choice was to let the bard die without a fight.

And that wasn’t an option.

When the black magic shattered the combat Sign, Jaskier screamed.

The clearing flared with light and sound.

Waves of power echoed through the forest.

And everything was still. Far, far too still.


	2. Blood and Fire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Head cannon is as follows: Geralt has slight fangs that are just inhuman enough to be called such; Jaskier can be quite feral and scrappy but it breaks his artist’s heart to cause pain to any creature, human or otherwise; Geralt refuses to call the bard his friend to protect him; steel isn’t just for monsters; Jaskier’s personality is mostly pulled from the TV show.

The rise to consciousness was sudden and agonizing.

He hadn’t been under long – moments only, if the smell of ozone and sulfur was anything to go by. But it was long enough that his entire form was beginning to cramp up in pain. He didn’t realize he hadn’t opened his eyes until he nearly whimpered against the darkness, and he blinked abruptly.

The world didn’t readily come into focus. A mesh of brown and black blobs shimmered like a mirage in the desert, and his stomach turned. Forcing his eyes to narrow, he stared.

The left side of his vision was taken up by burnished black and stunning silver.

With the visual, there was an abrupt rise of a burning ache on that side of his face. He tried moving his head to the right, and the pain multiplied exponentially; he literally heard his skin tear sideways. Hissing lowly, he jerked his head back, just enough to realize exactly what had happened.

His arms were yanked upward, tightly pressed together, lashed from palm to shoulder. He was on his knees, vines and limbs wrapped over his thighs with numbing pressure. The Leshen had unleashed the woods upon him at the last moment, trying to stop the Witcher’s attack before it had a chance to hit.

It had been too late, but only barely. The result was that Geralt had been pulled down to the ground, wrestled into a kneeling position, and pressed forward into the edge of his silver sword. It was sharp, rightly so, and had bit deep. Any change in his angle, any lower press to the ground, and the blade likely would have cut his throat.

Straining against the bonds, Geralt tried to look up, but black blood continued to run into both of his eyes, nearly blinding him. Breathing out slowly, he twisted his left hand in his bindings as well as he could. Dimly, he felt warmth trickle down his arm with the motion, but he ignored it. The strands of dead wood were firm, but he worked with thinning patience as he slowly freed his fingers.

He wasn’t surprised when Aard refused to flare to life in his palm. He could feel something cold in his chest, something deep and icy sucking his strength, and he did his best to ignore it. Instead, he leaned back as much as he could and, finding no give in the vines around his biceps, he gnawed on the bindings. His canines were longer than humans’, pointed enough to draw the blood from inside his own mouth when he wasn’t careful, and he tore into the vines with those edges.

Geralt knew exactly what he looked like: a wolf caught in a trap, coming damn close to chewing its own limb off to get free.

But his efforts were soon rewarded, and he felt the lines at his arms weaken and unnaturally wither. As they died, they heated to a solid, thick, hot coal, and he flinched. Forcing his legs to cooperate, he shoved himself to the side ungracefully, bursting out of the embered lines and away from his treacherous sword. He kept moving, rolling to a hard stop. He smelled the heat give way to burning leather and hair and ash, and he squeezed his eyes shut.

Compartmentalizing. That’s all he had to do. Put it away.

He laid on the dead grass for a minute, breathing harshly, curled around his aching chest and throbbing arm, the hot sizzle against his skin almost background music to everything else. Laying on his side, the blood followed gravity, and he blinked enough from his eyes to make out his surroundings.

The ankle-high meadow had all been burned and blown away, the ashy dust drifting through the clearing like small, foggy clouds. It caught in his throat, made him cough, and he finally shoved himself upright, unsteadily. The world spun in his sight, not only due to the toxins thrumming under his skin, and he refused to lose his stomach. He knew, if he went down again, he wouldn’t get back up. Moving slowly, supporting his broken right arm with his left against the heat in his side, he lurched forward.

A passing breeze swept most of the grey out of the air, opening the vast clearing to his sight, and every confused thing in his mind hid behind his sudden, absolute focus on the downed man across the way.

There was no movement from the poet.

The vines and limbs were still wrapped firmly around him, still coated with his blood, he was still kneeling with his head down, still just inches away from the dagger.

Still, still, _still!_

The way Geralt staggered to him was embarrassing, but he had no audience, and felt little shame for his injuries. The pride of the Witcher had long been beaten and drilled and mutated out of him, but there was the simple, unmarred fact: an ancient, magic-casting Leshen had unleashed all its merits upon his blade, and his blade remained unbroken. Such a thing soothed the ruffle of annoyance in himself, in his wounds, and he instead turned the whole of his attention to the bard.

Still too still.

Reaching Jaskier took too long. It was only fifty feet, if that. It should have been ten quick steps, and maybe three of his heartbeats. Instead, he was still half that distance away a minute later.

It turned out that it didn’t matter if he made it to the other man or not.

His senses were overwhelmed to the point of breaking. Everything was flooding his system as his pulse pounded against his skin. The potions in his system were rapidly running out, both figuratively and literally. Pouring out of him from wounds too numerous to count, his constitution too weak to support their effects any longer, the blood coating him began to slip from black to red.

So he was, this spawn of onyx and crimson and flame, teeth bared against agony and fear, slightly hunched like a dog protecting its wounds, a wholly monstrous and terrifying thing to the thirty or so villagers that abruptly surged into the clearing.

The mob was painfully clichéd. Pitchforks, torches, shovels, axes – they were all armed as well as their simple living could allow them. Drawn by the long sounds of fighting and unnatural howls, and spurred by the final flash of fire that could wipe out their fields, they came.

And there was not a friendly face to be found.

Drained by the fight, Geralt could do little but pull back and snap at the dozen men that abruptly surrounded him, breaking his sightline of Jaskier. Flames danced along the edges of his blurred sight, some flickers coming too close, and he shied back. The dizziness of the world wasn’t helped by the dusky light from above or the neon-bright torches around him. Shouts and hollers overwhelmed both his sight and his ears, the echoing waves of sound vibrating red in his vision.

“Get the beast!”

“Bring the rope and chains, quickly!”

“Teeth like a monster, I told you!”

“Someone get the buckets – get the fire out!”

“He’s still alive; there’s hope yet! Send a runner to alert the town!”

“Bring it down! _Bring it down!_ ”

The sharp order behind him was the only warning he received before loops of rope abruptly fell over his head from three different directions. They all tightened in various measures and stops and starts, dragging him to the ground like an animal. Black spots danced across his eyes as his airway was suddenly and effectively cut off. Reacting instinctively, he pushed himself to a knee and snarled loudly, wrapping one rope around his left wrist and loosening it with a hard pull. He paid dearly for the slight breath he earned; his side gushed with warmth and the other two lines were wrenched tight enough that he felt tender skin underneath split below the roughhewn fibers.

And with his arm foolishly leashed of his own movements and his other nearly numb with pain, he couldn’t fight them as they pulled him down again. Everything devolved into pressure and agony. He was barely aware of hands on him, grubbing and searching, fear-driven and angry. He felt the comforting weight of his steel blade slip away, his armor and medallion were torn from his body, and he was pushed and pulled against lines and chains.

So he was suddenly left alone in the middle of the clearing, back on his knees, forearms bound to each other across his abdomen, presumably so his hands could be easily watched. His bracer had been removed, the stiff support gone, and the bones from his wrist to his elbow throbbed. The thin but deep lines drawn into his flesh by the wooded thorns spilled blood evenly, hiding every scent but copper and iron. With his eyes squeezed shut against sensation and nausea, he couldn’t find Jaskier in the chaos.

That brought fight back to the foreground.

Surging to his feet with adrenaline that made his heart pound, he pushed forward against the restraints at his throat and the chains at his biceps and ankles. All of it grew taut, and still he fought for a few desperate steps, golden eyes blown wide, searching. He ignored the blood slipping down his face, gave no thought to the new burst of stickiness against his left elbow, and didn’t let his gaze linger on any of the fearful faces around him.

They all moved against him as one, an ocean wave against rock, and he leaned hard against their hands and tools. There, just barely lit by two torches and the ebbing sunlight, he could see his friend.

Jaskier had been carefully, painstakingly hacked free of his woody confines, then laid gently on a thick woolen cloak. The three villagers around him were lightly pressing cloth against his many wounds, urgent and cautious tones ebbing up from where they kneeled. The bard was still and pale and bloody, his green tunic and brown leggings stained with mud and sap and his own life fluids. Focusing, barely able to make his eyes respond the way he needed them to, Geralt honed all his waning senses on the thin skin on his neck, just under his jaw. It was dirty and dim in the darkness, but there was enough slick blood and fire that he could see movement.

Beat. And beat. And beat.

Fast, rapid, but thrumming and real and alive. Against all odds, against the stupidity of Witchers and the anger of old magic, the bard had survived. Would continue to survive, if the tender care of the ones helping him was anything to go by. Whatever terror was driving the villagers, it was singularly focused on Geralt. Jaskier, for some unknowable reason, was not seen as a threat.

The relief that surged through his system with the next heartbeat nearly dropped him right there. Indeed, he sagged in place, his weight falling upon the townspeople around him, and they instantly shoved him back. He let them. He let them push him to the ground and beat him with the flat edges of shovels and weigh against the ropes at his throat long enough that he gagged for air when they slackened. It didn’t matter.

None of this mattered. If they kept their focus on him, it could only help the bard. They didn’t need to see the wolf carved into the dagger by Jaskier’s hand. They didn’t need to note the spare lute strings Geralt had long carried in the bottom of his hip pouch. They didn’t need to recognize the fear in the Witcher’s face for the human’s injuries.

His hearing had picked out a single word in all this, something that made him terrified on a level he didn’t know quite existed in himself anymore.

 _Thrall_.

Shit. Shit, of course.

That one word explained _so much_ , and made everything _so much worse_.

* * *

They dragged him back to the town like a rabid dog.

One of the ropes around his neck was tied to the pommel of an old saddle; a second length ran between the loops of the clutching metal on his biceps and was twisted around the first, the plodding mule pulling him along steadily. The other loops around his throat were held tight on either side of him. Directly behind him, two particularly brave villagers were keeping pace, old, dull swords poking into his back with every misstep or stumble.

They’d blindfolded him – gagged him, too – and the disorienting loss of his senses made the nausea and bile in his gut churn. The dirty, worn stretch of cloth that had been shoved into his mouth and tied behind his head had an unfortunate side effect. It forced his jaw to remain cracked open, his teeth aching as he breathed as slowly as he could, and it made him scent the air. Witcher mutations weren’t kind to any they were forced upon. Those who’d suffered them twice, though, had it worse. Literally _seeing_ sounds and smells wasn’t enjoyable, even though it was often beneficial in tracking and hunting.

Now, though, those advantages were actively working against him.

His canines hot and dry, he could identify blood and sweat – human and animal – in the rags around his head. He smelled iron filings, woodsmoke, manure and cat piss. He felt the smell-taste of it all embed in his scent memory, making that dip in the roof of his mouth ache. When he tripped again, and his fangs cut into the top of his bottom lip, and his own blood overwhelmed everything else, he was quietly thankful.

Thankful, and distracted.

His captors were noisy, a ringing cacophony that made his blinded eyes thrum with spots of dark red aural vibrations. They were loud, they smelled, and he could feel their glares burning into his skin. He kept as much of his focus on his path as was required to keep himself from faceplanting and tuned the rest of his limited faculties to tracking the bard. He could tell where he was because of the singular pocket of quiet in the entire group. There were enough breaks in the din for him to catch a few soft words.

_“Bleeding…can we stop…need a heal-…mind is not his.”_

The ground underneath transitioned from grass to pressed dirt, and he only had one foot on the cobblestones at the town’s gateway when a new cry arose in his ears. Women screamed, children whooped and hollered, and, annoyingly, he heard a cat hiss somewhere close. The expected whistle of an air assault gave him only a half beat of warning before a rock struck his chest with a dull thunk. Another, then another. They were maybe halfway through the village before the assault abruptly stopped at a sharp word from the man leading the mule. Ursten was a simple village, a long row of houses on either side of a main lane, with only a tavern that doubled as an inn, a blacksmith, and a small shop supporting the families that had sought refuge there from the war. Geralt half expected to be at the mercy of the metalworker, since that trade was more highly regarded than the others he’d seen offered in the town.

Instead, a more high-pitched, haughty voice brought them to a stop.

By the time they’d forced him to his knees with tightened ropes – he hadn’t gone willingly – the ground under his feet was slick with his own blood. When they finally wrenched off the blindfold and gag – he didn’t let them near his face without a fight – his skin was hot and warm from new rising bruises. And when he forced his own mind out of his throbbing, mangled flesh, he realized it was possibly just as bad as he’d thought. Maybe worse.

Standing in front of him was a…mage? Healer? Priest of the White Fire? He couldn’t tell. The robes worn were a hodgepodge of strange garments. There was a sash from the priesthood, a hanging satchel that was filled with herbs, and a garnet and sapphire necklace that glittered with obvious falseness even in the darkness. It was an old man, and he leaned heavily on a yew staff that was topped with a massive point of smokey quartz.

All this, Geralt took in at a glance. Unsteady even on his knees, he still immediately cast his eyes about for Jaskier. He couldn’t see him.

“What have you done?”

It was a sharp, damning question, and the Witcher felt relief for half a heartbeat.

Then he realized that it was directed, not at the villagers practically foaming at the mouth, but to him.

Fuck.

“We were returning to the inn for the evening and stumbled upon a Leshen. Your town may have said there was such an evil lurking nearby,” he growled, glaring up at the odd man with all of his anger. “The bard needs help –”

That yew staff suddenly struck out at him with speed he didn’t expect in the old shaman. The quartz caught him on the left side of his face, reawakening the agony that encompassed the wound and spilling more blood down his face. He instinctively swallowed the groan that rolled up his throat at the pain.

“Speak of the bard as he is to you, beast. Call him as he is.”

Huffing out a breath that made his side ache, Geralt grit his teeth and tried not to show the fangs that proved himself the monster the people thought he was. “His name, you prick, is Jaskier.”

This earned him another crack of the staff, one of the sharp edges skimming his jaw. He grunted and snapped his eyes back to the other man.

“I did not ask his name, beast. Speak as he is to you.”

Geralt didn’t hesitate as he answered just as sharply, “I already did, you ploughing prick. And you would do well to call _me_ as _I_ am – a Witcher.”

There was no friendliness in the shaman’s face when he smiled.

“Witchers are monsters, and your behavior to the bard proved this.” He sneered at Geralt’s flinch. “Yes, I was told by the tavern maidens. They said you speak vilely to him, deny him the usual pleasantries between man. They said you told him to, gods preserve me, _fuck off_ more than once in their hearing.”

Geralt’s heart felt like it skipped an elongated beat. It was true, he wouldn’t deny. The moment he had detected the anger and fear of the villagers, he had immediately pushed the bard to arm’s length. Jaskier was used to it, understood the reasoning. It never ended well when anyone thought they were on friendly enough terms to use the human against the Witcher.

This time, that ruse didn’t seem to work as well as it usually did.

“Might’ve,” he allowed, voice gravelly. “He’s not my friend.”

The shaman stared at him unblinkingly, and Geralt glared back. Behind him, he felt the swell of rage in the townspeople, the sensation choking him as much as the ropes around his neck. But he didn’t move, simply held the other man’s gaze, and waited. Then the shaman’s attention shifted to the villagers, and he raised a gnarled hand to quiet their uncomfortable murmurs.

“Peace, my people!” he called, voice icy and cracking. “You are safe from this beast.”

Spitting out blood and saliva, Geralt added lowly, “And from the fucking Leshen. Killed that thing before you all decided to show up.”

The shaman physically flinched and there was fire in his dark eyes as he turned a horrified gaze to the Witcher. His bony fingers tightened on the staff as he gaped like a fish on land.

“You…you destroyed the guardian?”

Shifting to ease the pressure on his side, Geralt bit out, “It wasn’t a guardian, it was a Leshen. Old, too. Probably been dominating these woods for hundreds of years, picking off anyone who travelled into its domain. And again, something you could have warned us about.”

From somewhere in the crowd, a woman’s voice cried, “It only demanded the blood of the cursed!”

Trying and failing not to roll his eyes, the Witcher responded loudly, “So you offered it sacrifices for generations? Ill babies, three legged calves?”

A man he couldn’t see answered, “And damned mutants and their thralls!”

There was that word again.

“Jaskier is _not_ in thrall. We travel together willingly.”

The shaman took a shuffling step closer and pointed a twisted fingernail in his face. “Monsters don’t travel – they hunt. Dogs don’t bunk with men – they sleep in the fields. You will release him from your curse.”

Geralt felt a bad taste flood his mouth. “There’s no curse. No magic.” The shaman didn’t move, and he tried a different tactic. “You want me gone? I will leave this moment. I require no payment for my services. Let me take Jaskier to a healer in Novigrad and you will never see us again.”

But his suggestion was dismissed out of hand.

“Bind him well and place him in the cellar behind Ranad’s home. Bring the human to me for treatment.”

* * *

The cellar was deep, dark, just the wrong side of cool, and dampness clung to the jagged rocks that had been pressed into the mud. It was also empty. He wondered at that for a moment as he was dragged into the hole. Then he smelled old blood, saw metal hooks in the wooden beams, and it made too much sense.

He wasn’t surprised when ropes were replaced with chains, their lengths leashed to the hooks he’d noted, and in a flurry of movement, he was well and truly restrained.

The cellar was taller than most men, but Geralt wasn’t most men. His head would’ve struck the ceiling if he’d been standing. Instead, they forced him to sit on a small stool and bound his ankles to the legs. His arms had been wrenched away from his chest – he couldn’t keep in the groan as his right arm was pulled roughly upward. His arms were bound against two plates, arches in one giving space for his wrists, and the plates was chained to a support beam in the ceiling.

In the end, they had him similarly bound to the Leshen’s entrapment. When he thought about it, he realized that Jaskier had been almost identically brought down.

Odd coincidence.

He could have fought, he knew. It would have been messy – messier than Blaviken, by a long shot – but he could have escaped. But they had Jaskier in some hut, treating him for his wounds, and Geralt decided to bide his time, instead. Any aggression appeared singularly focused on him. He could handle that. For now, the human needed healing, and the Witcher himself could do with some meditation.

It had been a long day.

But when he tried to slip into the in-between-ness of meditation, into that floating world where everything and nothing focused to a needlepoint, he couldn’t. It wasn’t due to the strange iciness in his chest, either. In his mind’s eye, he kept seeing that look Jaskier had thrown him as the Leshen’s magic crossed the clearing. He could still hear that _word_ , the desperation in the tone, as it echoed through his memory. He still couldn’t tell which of them had said it. He didn’t know if the fear in his heart had made the term spill from his lips, or if Jaskier’s own terror had made it slip from his.

Not knowing that bothered him as much as the bard’s absence.

He knew that Jaskier often tried to close the distance his own emotional walls had created. The man was all heart and openness and belief, a true artist. If he was honest with himself, he appreciated that Jaskier even tried.

And that trust, that lack of fear of the Witcher’s white skin and blackened eyes and blood-soaked armor and silver sword…he had looked at Geralt like he was still him, still _human_ , even as he was obviously not. He still believed he would save him.

Fine job he’d done of that.

Growling away his frustration, Geralt heard his two guards shift in alarm at the sound. They were stationed at the front of the cellar, well out of arm’s reach, and they were armed with those dulled swords that had bruised his back on the trek from the woods. Even with his eyes closed, he could feel their fear.

Ignoring it, he pushed himself into a meditative state with force of mind that hurt. He needed to be ready for when he could rescue Jaskier and leave this forsaken town far in memory.


	3. Hollowing Souls

It was just past dawn when the sounds outside grew louder and pulled him from shallow sleep.

Blinking open gritty eyes, his left responding sluggishly due to the swelling around his wound, Geralt breathed slowly. The meditation had done his injuries some good, closing the deeper recesses of the hurts, but the thin scabs were delicate and would crumble with too much movement. In the depths of the scored lines on his shoulders and arms, he could feel the tell-tale itch and pull of knitted flesh. He wondered if he would make it through the rough ride out before he succumbed to renewed blood loss, then mentally waved away the concern. Jaskier had grown a steady hand on Roach’s reins, and the horse’s temperament around the bard had eased over time. They would be fine.

He didn’t move as four people crowded the far entrance of the cellar, torches lighting the space brightly. His eyes automatically narrowed in the glare, their reflective gold flashing in the dim depths of his temporary prison, and he heard some unnamed villager gasp a prayer to some god. He ignored it. It was easy to focus his sight, even with the time he’d spent in the darkness, even without Cat in his blood, and he fixed his eyes forward.

They walked towards him uneasily, slowly – the shaman with that damned staff of his, and the two men supporting a very bandaged Jaskier between them.

The bard was wearing some simple linen trousers and a sleeveless shirt, and the coverings on his feet were stained with dirt and age. In fact, all of it was old; there were dark splotches and splatters on the fabric in uneven intervals, and a ragged hole near one shoulder had been mended with dark thread. But the bandages covering him were clean, though spotted with dried blood. They were wrapped completely around his arms, the skin there having taken the brunt of the Leshen’s attack. A particularly thick bundle of linen and rope was snug around his right wrist.

There was a sudden surge of guilt in Geralt’s gut, seeing that. It was the same hand he’d raised when reaching for him during the fight, the vines tight and unyielding already but _still_ he’d reached for him. 

Something sharp in his chest spiked then eased, and he sighed through his nose. It didn’t matter. He was safe, being healed, and they would soon quit this place with extreme prejudice. He could drill better survival techniques into the bard once they were safely away.

Pressing his left fingers into a familiar pattern, blocking out the regular surge of pain from his right arm with every heartbeat, he waited.

“My friend, I will ask you now, in the presence of this beast. What is this creature to you?”

The shaman didn’t bother with pleasantries, didn’t even cast a glance at the Witcher, and he looked at the man who had been nearly carried into the cellar. The slope leading into the open room wasn’t terribly steep, but it was long. Jaskier’s eyes were slightly glazed, his face drawn, and his hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, but Geralt detected no smells beyond the usual healing herbs and tonics. He hadn’t been drugged, thankfully.

It was the same time he realized that Aard wasn’t flowing to his fingertips as he noted the genuine bewilderment on the bard’s face.

“I’m sorry, Tildan. I don’t…I don’t understand,” Jaskier said softly, and he took a half step back.

Geralt’s breath caught in his throat, and he stared.

 _Terror, agony, confusion_.

Nothing familiar. No recognition. No humor.

Just fear.

Jaskier gawked at him with a tremble in his lips and his throat worked visibly as he tried not to vomit. He leaned against his supporters heavily, almost seeming to try to hide behind the larger one, and there was a sheen in his eyes that increased as he started to breathe heavily in the dampness. A shiver crossed his skin, raising gooseflesh that Geralt could see even in the flickering torches, and the Witcher knew it wasn’t caused by cold.

A similar shiver quaked somewhere behind his own heart as he realized there was something terribly, terribly wrong with the bard.

“I want to know what this creature is to you, my friend,” the shaman, Tildan, repeated, his voice gentle. “I know you’re tired and in pain. But I must know.”

Blinking repeatedly, Jaskier chewed his lip and pressed into the bigger villager even more. Geralt watched him, holding absolutely still, and waited to catch the slight nod or wink that would prove the ruse. Because that was absolutely what this had to be.

There had to be something outside the cellar, something he couldn’t smell or hear, something that proved they were both safer down in the damp than outside. It had to be something dangerous, for Jaskier to be looking at him like he was shit scraped out of a horse’s hoof.

“Tildan, I don’t know why you’re asking me. But I must…I confess, I regret to ask, as I’m a simple bard – why are you keeping the _monster_ in the cellar?”

Just like that. One word. One word, and all the air left Geralt’s lungs silently, and his pulse well and truly stumbled. All thoughts of Signs and the steadily increasing burn from the shackles and the wet heat in his side and the beating of his blood in his right arm…

It all flowed out of him and he let it. Trying to keep the old, familiar pain at bay was like trying to catch a waterfall in a thimble. It spilled over his walls, soaking him with a nauseating mix of shame and despair. He thought the world couldn’t hurt him any worse than it already had. He thought he’d found the depths of man’s depravity and sickness, thought he’d seen just about every horror that could be visited on his kind.

He’d been run out of towns, escaped from a few nooses to be chased by bloodthirsty dogs into the night. He’d been tied to a stake and the torch nearly dropped before he’d fought his way free. He’d been given contracts so purposefully twisted and snarled that drowners had turned into strigas, nekkers became wyverns, and he was welcomed with a beating upon completion.

But this? Geralt didn’t have any comparison for this. Nothing. In the same way that Vesemir would never push him away, that Lambert and Eskel would always aid him when asked, Jaskier would never…never treat him like a monster. Never see him as such. Never believe him as such. From the first time they’d met, the bard finding him in the dark corner of that crappy bar, Jaskier had treated him as a fellow man.

Now, well…maybe this was his punishment for caving to that deeply human need of companionship – he was utterly losing it.

“Isn’t it dangerous? I see you’ve got it strung up, but…why not just kill it? I thank you for your efforts on my behalf, but I would not have one of the villagers injured keeping it alive for my sake.”

For his _sake_? Geralt flexed his right hand slightly, biting back the grunt of pain, and he let the agony ground him. This half of the conversation was making no sense. He was extremely interested to know what lies and falsehoods had been spewed in the free air, anger starting to overtake pain.

What had they done to his bard?

Tildan seemed regretful as he placed a calming hand on Jaskier’s shoulder, light and soothing. “I’m sorry, my friend. We needed to ensure your safety. But you’ve no memory of this creature?”

Shaking his head and wincing, Jaskier took another step back. “None. I told you before, there’s barely anything in my head. I can’t remember…I remember walking. A lot of walking. I remember blood and fire. I remember screaming and pain and then this…this _thing_ was there!” The man’s voice climbed higher as he stumbled back from Geralt, the men holding him up moving with him. Tildan shushed him quietly and pressed a hand to the bard’s forehead.

“Peace, child.” Glancing at another man, he added, “It’s as I thought. The guardian must have broken the curse, but the monster still holds his memories.”

Geralt registered none of the commentary.

He couldn’t. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t feel, couldn’t do anything but sit there are stare at the younger man.

_Monster._

_It._

_Thing._

The more the bard spoke, the further that frozen spike in his chest twisted and bucked and moved. The distant hope that maybe, maybe this was an act, a trick, a quick but dirty way to put the villagers off kilter long enough to escape…every syllable burned that hope alive.

Jaskier’s voice was the only thing that could break through the swirling thoughts in his head, through the rising tide of anger and frustration and absolutely unacknowledged fear.

“What the hell did you do to me, monster?”

It was a breathed, soft question, and Geralt refused to recognize the burning behind his eyes as he stared at the man wearing Jaskier’s face.

“I…I didn’t do…” _Anything_. He couldn’t bring himself to say it.

Did he? Did he do something?

Quen was chaos. Yrden was chaos. Aard was chaos. All three combat Signs had been used on magic that had touched the bard, or on the bard himself. Igni and Axii had been used on the Leshen who’d cast it. Wracking his brain, he couldn’t recall any tomes from Kaer Morhen that warned against the way he’d used them. But he remembered one phrase all too clearly.

_All magic has a price._

Usually, that price was his own stamina, his own strength. If he pushed himself hard enough and had the right potions, he could draw from his own life force, should the situation call for it. And he had thought that the particular combination he’d taken would allow him to do so.

Maybe he’d already bled too much of it out at that point.

The only thing that was clear was that he’d used magic to save Jaskier’s life, and had broken his mind, instead.

The connection was immediately clear. The coldness in his core wasn’t easing over time, and even his least focused attempt to bring a Sign to life was washed away with a frozen pulse from that place. Testing a theory, he twisted his left hand and pushed Aard at one of the torches.

It didn’t even flicker, but Jaskier abruptly fell to a knee and cried out as something colder than the White Frost burned the Witcher’s core, causing him to double over and nearly fall off the stool. He felt the bindings dig into his clothes, felt the metal around his neck suddenly slip off his high collar and touch bare skin instead. The scalding sensation there doubled, forcing a ragged breath from his mouth, and the bones in his right arm wrenched out of place again.

But that was all landscape. Details mattered here. Namely, that Jaskier’s life was somehow tied to his magic, and that he’d hurt the bard, deeply, with his attempt at Aard.

Shivering from the fire and ice that was dancing through his body, guilt and fear squeezing all the air from his lungs, Geralt stared at the bard’s bowed head. His mouth was parted with revelation, and he stammered, “I didn’t…Jaskier, I’m _sorry_.”

The smack from the staff was expected, and he stayed where the hit put him. His chin rested against his right upper arm, and he stared at the wall across from him, eyes tracing the patterns of the stones there. It was something solid, something tangible he could focus on, something other than summer and winter fighting for dominance in his core and under his skin. Something other than the anger in him cooling under the bucket of _unknowing_ and _incompetence_ and _what did I do_ that poured over him.

“Do not speak to him, monster. You’ve done him enough harm. Release his thoughts!”

Gritting his teeth, Geralt didn’t move and spoke into his sleeve, “Let me free and I will.” It was the only thing he could think to do. Flee the village, return home, and sink into the library there until he found a cure for what he’d done in his ignorance. Find Yennefer, Triss – fuck, he’d convene the Lodge of Sorceresses, if that’s what it took. He’d drop the moon and snuff the sun if it would save Jaskier from his damned stupidity. The bard didn’t deserve this.

But it wouldn’t be that easy.

“We’re not your usual oblivious village, beast.” That, Geralt would heartily disagree with to the end of his days. “You will release your last hold on this poor man, by your will or ours.”

Risking another strike, the Witcher turned back to the shaman and hoped his countenance was as frustrated and honest as he currently felt. “I cannot.” Not without help, without information, without distance from this accursed town and its oppressive hatred.

But the shaman wasn’t swayed by the openness on his captive’s face. He stared at the bound warrior, something calculating crossing his old features, and he rubbed at his long beard, considering. Finally, he turned and gestured to the group gathered. They left as one, the two whom had been helping Jaskier continuing to do so as they led the stumbling, disoriented bard from the cellar. At the far doorway, lit by torches and dawning sunlight, Tildan paused and glanced back at the Witcher.

“You will.”

* * *

Jaskier awoke to pain and pressure, and he immediately gasped at the sensations.

It felt like his flesh was melting off of his skin, like he was burning and freezing at the same time. It felt like something living was trying to eat its way out of his veins, and his heart galloped in his chest. Nearly hyperventilating, he whimpered and cried out and squirmed against the agony and utterly unreal blankness in his head.

Something was terribly, _terribly_ wrong.

There was a hand on his forehead suddenly, and he startled back from it, drawing more dueling pain and numbness from his body.

“Peace, child – peace. You are safe.”

Blinking open his eyes, gritty with soot and wet with tears, he stared up at a thatch ceiling he didn’t know, the edge of a robe and old skin just visible in his sight. But then he leaned into the cool touch, welcoming the way it soothed the heat inside him, and he finally fixed his eyes on a man. He was ancient, a grey beard nearly reaching his waist where he sat on the bed beside him, and his green eyes were simultaneously cool and warm.

When he opened his mouth to speak, he was immediately hushed.

“Don’t talk, my friend. You’ve had a trying time.”

His head hurt when he tried think back and confirm the statement, but the smell of blood was overwhelming even to his limited senses, so he took it as fact.

“You were injured in a fight, and we’ve tended most of your hurts. You will be weak for some time, and some of your wounds will scar – I am sorry for that – but you will be well.”

He couldn’t do anything more than give a strangled question that had no syllables. A moment later, a tin cup of water was held to his lips as he was gently eased upright, and he slaked his thirst quickly. Panting and dizzy, he raised a bandaged hand to his face and scrubbed at it as he squeezed his eyes shut.

“What happened?” he finally managed to ask, confusion obvious in his tone.

The long pause between his query and the old man’s response made it obvious he was choosing his words. He could hear the hesitation like a bell.

“I hate to answer a question with its like, but what do you remember?”

The terrifying blankness in his head surged to the forefront, and he panted at the cold fear that soaked through him. Wrenching open his eyes, he stared at the old man as confused tears gathered at the edges of his vision.

“I don’t…I don’t know.” It wasn’t comforting to admit it aloud. “What’s happened to me?”

Pressing down gently on his shoulder, the older man soothed him before cautiously stating, “You came here a day ago. You were walking behind a rider. You left midday with your…companion, and traversed the woodland. The guardian there sought to release you from a spell placed upon you by the rider, but was apparently destroyed in the attempt. I pray to Kreve that the results have not harmed you further than your physical ailments.”

Sparks of red memory flared at his words, and he licked his lips as his head ached.

“I’m…Jaskier. I’m a bard. I know that much. And I think…yes, I remember _something_ there. White and black, fire and heat. I remember being afraid, so afraid,” he whispered, staring at nothing. “I was screaming. It hurt.”

Nodding, the old man answered, “I am sure it did. I’m sorry for your trials, young one. My name is Tildan, and I am shaman to this village and its good people. The brave men of this village came to your rescue and captured the creature with you. I had hoped that the removal of the spell would be simple, but it appears the monster still has a hold on you.”

There was an odd sort of terror rising in Jaskier as the shaman continued his explanation, something deep in his gut aching at the word ‘monster’, and he shifted painfully.

“What do you mean? What monster? What spell?” he asked as he shifted sideways with help. Tildan frowned and leaned against a yew staff. The smoky quartz point at the top was dark with dried blood. “Magic is a terrible thing, child, and not fully understood. It is why Kreve has condemned its use and the subjugation and control of those who choose to unnaturally wield it. If I’d fully known the extent of the thrall placed upon you, I would have acted sooner. Please forgive me, my friend.”

An odd mix of thankfulness and wariness surged through Jaskier, and he stared at the shaman. Below the many bandages on his skin, he could feel the stiffness of healing wounds under salves aplenty. He was wearing simple white linens, a far cry from the troubadour threads he usually wore, and he rubbed the bottom edge of his tunic with his fingertips.

“What…what do you mean by thrall?”

Tildan sighed and stood slowly, hampered by age, and he wandered to a side table in the small hut to retrieve a pitcher. They were alone in the one room building, but Jaskier could hear movement outside and the chirping of birds. It was close to dawn.

“The one you came with is a beast that walks like a man. It is a monster that speaks as you and I. It treated you terribly last eve, spit words that I dare not repeat, and tried to force you to perform in our town for its amusement and prosperity. We allowed it to wipe a local pestilence from nearby – what better use of a monster than to turn it on its own kind? – but we denied it the pleasure of your humiliation. By midday, it took you into the wild to allegedly hunt for game. I dare not question what else it had in mind, but a thorough examination of your hurts revealed no…abnormal injuries. I fathom the guardian sensed its intent and rescued you from any monstrous aims before it could visit them upon you.”

Jaskier gradually paled as the shaman went on, his bandaged fingers gripping the blankets over him with rising dread. The shaman either didn’t notice his discomfort or sought to finish his tale for the bard’s sake, for he continued while pouring them both a measure of weak wine.

“We worried for your safety when you had not returned by dusk. We could hear the sounds of a fierce battle in the woods, so I rallied the townspeople and they left to rescue you. What they came upon…I hesitate to recall.”

Swallowing the watery alcohol without wasting a breath, Jaskier gestured for another, hoping the spirit would fortify his own.

“Please, recall it. I cannot remember.”

The shaman nodded slightly and filled his cup again, sipping his own for a moment before he finally fixed his cool green eyes on Jaskier’s own blue.

“You were confined within a wooden cage of the guardian’s make. It was obviously built to protect you, though it did appear to cause many of your injuries. You were insensate, and the guardian was nowhere to be found. But the monster…it was walking towards you. Swaggering, as though proud of its accomplishment in running off our blessed protector. The first villagers who saw it told of white skin, black veins spilling blacker blood, and eyes like the darkest nights. And as they watched, it faded away to the human farce it wears. They sought to protect you, and it worked against them with its monstrous strength. It fought so hard to get its hands on your unprotected soul, but they managed to stave it off. They beat it into submission and brought it back here until I could determine the depths of its hold on you.”

Jaskier nearly choked as he swallowed, and his eyes watered for more reasons than one. “You…you saved my life.”

Tildan shook his head slightly. “Yes, perhaps, but your memories are another thing, for what is a man but the sum of them? We must endeavor to release you from its hold. I suspect it is how the thrall was placed and held; if the monster controls your memory, it controls your mind, and thus your soul.” He set aside his own drink and peered at some of the bandages that hid the worst wounds. “Can you walk, my friend? With aid? I hesitate to bring you before the creature, but it is the most expedient way to judge your actual state.”

Jaskier grimaced as he tested his movements. He hurt – gods, did he ache. His back felt striped with hot pain, and there was the taut heat across his shoulders and things that told of unseen bruises. There was a specific burning line of agony up his right arm, encircling his wrist, and he had a flash of reaching for something. Safety? Security? Whatever it was, it had been worth the pain to press against the guardian’s cage. Perhaps he’d been reaching for the protector, begging salvation. Maybe he’d reached for a weapon to fend off the monster. Elsewhere, he felt an allover tingle in his blood. He couldn’t identify the cause, but he hoped the shaman found a way to undo it soon. It was distracting.

So it was that he found himself propped between two helpful villagers, their faces worried and scared, and Jaskier tried to smile at them and failed. The otherworldly wrongness in his head made it impossible to think.

But still, he forced himself to place one foot in front of the other, leaning on his new friends, and they made their slow way through the village, led by Tildan. It was a simple town, a long road crowned by a gate and bracketed by homes and a few shops, and he glanced at the stable attached to the inn. A chestnut horse was standing in place, a bright white stripe down her nose, and she tossed her head and nickered when she saw him. He blinked at the familiar sound, and Tildan glanced over his shoulder.

“I surmise she is yours, child. The monster was riding her when you both arrived, but she responds equally to you. No doubt it stole her loyalty and familiarity through the bond.” The bard didn’t nod, because he feared his head would fall off if he did so, and he regarded the horse curiously. She seemed impatient, giving nervous flicks of her ears here and there, but she was clean and healthy.

“Roach,” he suddenly breathed, and a goofy smile crossed his face. “Her name is Roach. Like the fish.”

He was so undeniably proud of himself for remembering such a thing on his own that he didn’t recognize the stream of words in his mind, distant and dreamlike.

_“What is it you’re fishing for, exactly? Is it cod? Carp? Pike? Bream? I’m just – I’m just listing fish that I know. Zander? Is that a fish?”_

They flitted in and out of his consciousness without acknowledgement, and he continued moving forward with help. They moved down the line of homes until they reached one that was nondescript, and moved around to the backside of the tiny cabin. There was a hole in the hillside behind it, a single wood door thrown open and guarded by two armed men. There were several torches staked in the grass, fresh dirt proving they were new additions. Anxiety and fear rose up as they approached, and Jaskier tried to swallow it down.

“Before we enter, can you…can you give me a better description of the creature?” he suddenly asked, wincing as he stepped wrongly in the soft grass. But Tildan regretfully shook his head. “I dare not. The sheer shock of seeing it outside the full grip of the curse may be enough to break the last of it.”

An edge of panic twinged against the edges of his mind, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on placing one foot in front of the other, aware of the growing sheen of sweat on his forehead. Tildan’s staff was at the ready as they breached the cellar, and he flinched as more torches were lit beside him. In the far depths of the darkness, two gold eyes flashed in the new light, and the man on his right whispered a prayer.

Jaskier stared at the afterimage as the monster came into sight. It was exactly as terrifying as Tildan had implied. Cat eyes stared at him with unnerving clarity, and white hair framed a face that was coated in blood and heavily marred. It was leashed and bound – arms upright, a collar around its throat chained to the side walls, feet in boots and hands in gloves tightly clasped with manacles and irons. He distantly wondered if there were claws under those coverings. It wore a plain black shirt, ripped and torn, and combat trousers. Everything was coated with slick black and red fluid.

The bard tried not to gag. Adrenaline had gotten him this far on his trek, and he was certain that vomiting on those holding him up was a seriously rude thing to do. So he swallowed back bile and fear and forced himself to stare right back at the creature.

There was an unusual twist in the center of his chest as he took in the monster. It certainly _looked_ human, but for the white hair against skin that had not the age for it, eyes that were found in animals instead of men, and the tangible, thrumming vitality that it seemed to radiate, even confined and injured.

Tildan gave the bound thing little attention and instead turned to Jaskier. “My friend, I will ask you now, in the presence of this beast. What is this creature to you?”

He frowned at the question. He thought that was well established – it was his captor.

“I’m sorry, Tildan. I don’t…I don’t understand,” he murmured, icy tendrils of fear lacing through him the longer he was in the cellar. The man at his left gave the arm over his shoulder a reassuring squeeze even as he let him move back half a pace. But Tildan was gentle and his voice was soothing as he took pity on the bard. Jaskier tried to focus on his words, not on the strange pain and bewilderment surging in his system.

“I want to know what this creature is to you, my friend.” Jaskier glanced at the creature again. It was still staring at him, but there was something stricken in its face, as though it was equally feeling the bard’s sensations. _Good_ , he thought angrily. _Not very nice, is it?_

“I know you’re tired and in pain. But I must know.”

And he was. He was utterly exhausted. He didn’t know how much blood he’d lost between the woods and safety, but he felt drained as a ditch in drought. He sagged slightly between the two holding him up, and he fought the sickness and revulsion in his stomach to search his memory.

“Tildan, I don’t know why you’re asking me. But I must…I confess, I regret to ask, as I’m a simple bard – why are you keeping the _monster_ in the cellar?”

There had to be better places. Even a small town like this must have stocks. A tree and a strong rope would be better than visiting the creature in the darkness it likely reveled in.

As he spoke, though, his attention was drawn back to the monster. It had frozen in place, the small movements of its left hand stilling, and it exhaled lowly enough that Jaskier may have imagined it. But he had to give Tildan his thoughts. “Isn’t it dangerous? I see you’ve got it strung up, but…why not just kill it? I thank you for your efforts on my behalf, but I would not have one of the villagers injured keeping it alive for my sake.”

They had been nothing but kind to him, rescuing him and binding his wounds, healing him. He would not have them suffer for him. Tildan smiled magnanimously and rested a calming hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry, my friend. We needed to ensure your safety,” he reminded him, and Jaskier figured it would be disrespectful to state the obvious, that the security of one man shouldn’t be weighed against an entire village and come up the priority. The shaman asked, “But you’ve no memory of this creature?”

Did he? He didn’t know. There were flashes in his head, like a candle flickering in a strong wind, and he couldn’t place any of the images. Agitated, he tried to shake away the resulting pain and ended up causing himself more. He shifted back another step, the closeness of the cellar pressing in on him.

“None. I told you before, there’s barely anything in my head.” But there was something. Something intangible, full of fear and trust and agony. What was from the guardian? The creature? “I can’t remember…I remember walking. A lot of walking. I remember blood and fire. I remember screaming and pain and then this…this _thing_ was there!”

He snapped the last of it, fear and anger sharpening his words as a very clear visual flashed behind his eyes: the monster lurching towards him, sword on its back, another nearby, bleeding tar-like blood, teeth set in a snarl. The image was tilted and webbed and thin, as though Jaskier had been looking sideways through lowered lashes, and the burn in his wrist reawakened. He gagged on the terror that welled in his gut. He could remember ashes falling like snow. It was maddening, the stilted memories that assaulted him, and he gasped for air.

_He wanted his life back._

Tildan was soothing him quietly, from somewhere outside his own broken mind, and he leaned into the touch. “Peace, child.” There was a pause, then he continued, “It’s as I thought. The guardian must have broken the curse, but the monster still holds his memories.”

Jerking his head up, refusing to succumb to the pain the movement caused, he glared at the thing bound before him and poured all his frustration into a single sentence.

“What the hell did you do to me, monster?”

It came out soft but powerful, and he trembled in place. The creature’s gold eyes were coated with an unusual sheen, something that Jaskier knew was out of place in a monster’s gaze, but he paid it no mind.

Then is _spoke_ , and he wanted to vomit all over again.

“I…I didn’t do…”

Gods help him, he hadn’t believed it, but the thing _could_ speak words, real words, and it sounded human, sounded like a man, sounded like it was in pain and scared and confused. No wonder it had snagged Jaskier in its thrall; who wouldn’t be swayed by a monster that could simulate emotions? Even the fangs that winked behind its speech wouldn’t dim its voice.

He averted his eyes from the creature, terrified of falling under its spell again, and then something prickled under his skin. Jaskier breathed in sharply, the agony of his wounds flaring bright against his senses, and he cried out as it peaked with a suddenness that took his breath away. His own voice hid the sound of movement and words across from him, blocking it from his ears, and he panted into his chest. He didn’t realize he had fallen until he heard the sound of rock on flesh from somewhere above him.

“Do not speak to him, monster. You’ve done him enough harm. Release his thoughts!” Tildan was furious – it was obvious in his voice – and Jaskier tried not to weep at the defense he was provided with. Then the creature spoke again, its tone deep, the quality graveled and rough, and the bard felt that strange twist in his gut again. “Let me free and I will.”

For a heartbeat, he prayed Tildan would do as it said. He wanted to be far away from this creature, to put an ocean between them, but he didn’t want to risk its returned wrath on the town, either. The shaman seemed to be of the same mind.

“We’re not your usual oblivious village, beast. You will release your last hold on this poor man, by your will or ours.”

Glancing up at the monster from between his sweaty, greasy bangs, Jaskier hoped he looked pathetic enough to sway whatever false heart beat inside the thing. Instead, it said quietly, “I cannot.”

Could not, would not – the words and whatever they hid didn’t mean anything. All Jaskier knew was that the strange fire in his blood wouldn’t ease, was strongest when he was near the thing, and he shivered and prayed for mercy to whatever god would grant it to him. He was almost delirious as he was dragged out into the cool sunlight of the spring dawn, and he sank to his knees. He didn’t feel the fussing of his helpers or the swish of long robes against his back, but he heard Tildan’s retort clearly.

“You will.”


	4. Confined in Mountain Halls

Jaskier sat on his borrowed bed, staring at the far wall, flexing his right hand.

The rest of his wounds had started to heal quickly under the shaman’s care, but these particular ones were responding slower than the others. They ringed his wrist like a bracelet, the angry red lines mercilessly placed. He was thankful they hadn’t cut so deep to render his fingers useless. He rubbed them gently, feeling the scabs bend with the motion, and the slight shock of pain helped ground him.

It had been two days since he’d awoken in Tildan’s hut, and the healer’s work was highly productive. He treated him with a strange salve that smelled a mix of nuts and tree sap and honey, some spices too, perhaps, and though it was no remedy he knew, it worked well. Well enough that he was able to get up and move on his own fairly easily. His legs still ached, and he had muscle spasms in his calves at random intervals, but he could walk.

The fire in his blood had only started to ease the day before, though, and it was still there, just distant.

For a reason he didn’t know, he kept that one fact from the shaman. The why was something he didn’t ruminate upon. He trusted the man as far as one could, and he obviously had experience in injuries of both the physical and magical sort. But this particular thing, he couldn’t bring himself to speak of. He didn’t know if it was out of an abundance of unwarranted caution, or if it was from a deep, soul-deep fear that the creature had a stronger hold on him than any of them knew.

Glancing out the window, he realized it was almost noon, and he was hungry. So he carefully made his way from Tildan’s hut to the inn, smiling and greeting those who passed him. They were all friendly, though restrained, and Jaskier couldn’t blame them. He was a visible reminder of the fact that they had a monster in their basement. He himself shuddered anytime that fact crossed his consciousness. The strange twist deep in his abdomen would reawaken anytime he thought of the white-haired creature, and he rubbed the circular wounds on his wrist again.

At the inn, he was given a plate of meat and bread, a mug of ale, and the pretty maiden behind the bar extracted a promise that he would return for supper. Jaskier headed outside, feet aimed towards the healer’s hut, but he paused in front of one particular house. It was Ranad’s home, the only thing really marking it different than the others the path tread around to the back.

Why Jaskier’s direction changed, he didn’t know.

But he let his whim guide him, knowing that as an artist, he had to listen to the muses of the unknown. He came within sight of the cellar quickly, and he nodded at the two standing outside the opened doors. Med and Hather were on duty this time, and though they were serious in their charge, they still gave him a wave.

“Hale, Hather,” he said quietly, and he frowned towards the cellar. “Any change?”

He hoped he would know if there had been, if by nothing else than an easing of the wrongness in his blood and the return of his memory. But the tall man shook his head and glanced at the dark cave. “Afraid not, friend. It’s had no food or water since its capture, in hopes that would weaken its hold. But it apparently hasn’t spoken again. Tildan ventured inside last night to beg your release once more, and returned without success.”

Med was less generous in his tone as he snapped, “I side with the bard. Why not just kill it? That’ll break any spell, surely.”

With a temperament that bespoke his lifelong habit of explaining things to those younger than him, Hather patiently explained, “Tildan said that curses can be bound by blood and time, not just life force. Killing it may make the thrall-spell return in full.”

Jaskier stared at the dark doorway before him, grip tightening on his plate and mug as he abruptly realized something odd. The fire in his blood had cooled the closer he came to the cellar, and it was now nearly nonexistent, mere embers floating through his veins.

“Did Tildan say anything?” he asked, gesturing towards the darkness with his mug. “About his conversation with it?”

Med crossed his arms and there was a coldness in his face that surprised the bard. “It was less a conversation and more an attempt to force its will, judging by the sounds and the way Ogin and Elom looked coming out.” Jaskier glanced at Hather for clarification, and he seemed tired as he rubbed the back of his neck and answered his look with a quiet statement. “Kicking a dog can make it howl.”

Swallowing back the nasty taste in his mouth, Jaskier realized, “You’re torturing it.”

Shrugging, Med pulled some water from the flask on his hip and replied, “It’s just a beast – no different than a wolf. Just so happens this one’s got your mind in its teeth. We’ve got to try something.”

Now that he looked, Jaskier could see heavily trampled grass at the entrance, and there were two buckets nearby, the wood water-soaked and damp. One was still partly full, and three metal handles stuck out from its depths. He stared at the irons, simultaneously grateful and nauseous at the villagers’ attempts to rescue him from the last of the thrall.

But he didn’t feel comfortable being left out of the loop regarding the creature, either. It was _his_ mind, after all, that was at risk. He ought to be able to see the results of the attempts, if nothing else.

“I’m going in.”

The declaration surprised him as much as the other two men, and Med cocked his head with a vaguely approving smile. “Didn’t take you for the bloodthirsty sort, friend.” There was bile crawling up Jaskier’s throat, and he swallowed it down. He most certainly was not – at least, he didn’t believe so – but the drive to do something was pushing him closer to the doorway. That, and the cooling burn.

“I don’t ever wish to see anything suffer, true. But it has visited a type of agony on me that I wouldn’t dare wish upon my worst enemy. I just wonder, though, if it might talk to me.” Hather fingered the hilt of his sword and frowned, and Jaskier abruptly asked, “It can still speak if it wants, yes?”

Med tossed a hand in the air and responded vaguely, “If it wants, I’m sure it could. They didn’t take out its lying tongue yet, neither have they sewn up its mouth. Should be able to communicate after a fashion.”

But Hather put a restraining hand on his shoulder as he moved forward and asked, “Is this wise? You’re barely standing on your own, and it may try something.”

Shrugging and wincing slightly at the arch of pain from his back, the bard responded, “I doubt it will try much if anything. If it was wont to kill me, I believe it would’ve done so long before we reached Ursten. Just stay near the entry – I’ll call if I need you.” He tried to leave his meal with them, but Med took the plate of food and shoved the ale back at him with a grin. “You’ll need it.”

So he pushed his way past the guards and trekked into the darkness. It wasn’t a shallow hole, and he used the light of the posted torches to track his careful steps. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could see the many changes made to the cellar since his last visit.

A long bench had been brought in and pushed to the side of the room, and there were open shackles and ropes wrapped around its legs. A length of cloth was laid over it as though to dry. The wood was soaked through, and deep ruts and a mud puddle near the edge of the cellar proved its use. Hanging on a random spike behind it was a long scourge, leather tips flecked with salt but unmarred otherwise. It hadn’t yet been used. Uneasy, Jaskier focused on his fingertips and the way the wood of the cup felt under his skin, and he finally turned towards the creature.

He flinched.

He hated seeing anything hurt, though he might be persuaded to make an exception for the monster, but this was still almost too much for his poet’s stomach.

Its shirt had been torn away at some point, its boots and gloves removed, and it had been chained in a different position. Now, instead of sitting on a stool, it was kneeling in mud made by its own blood. Its arms were still strung straight up, its collar still in place, and the bard studied it carefully.

A gag had been applied at some point, as well as a blindfold, but the latter couldn’t hide the deep lacerations on its face. The gag itself was wedged behind sharply pointed fangs, and Jaskier shook slightly at the sight. Then there was its skin. It was literally shredded in some places, and the marks were similar to his own; it hadn’t brought down the guardian without taking damage. On its left side, there was a deep, nasty wound that was newly seared shut, the skin puckered and covered with a nauseating mixture of red and white blisters. Its right arm was mottled with bruises, a slight angle barely obvious in the middle of the damage.

It was soaked with a mixture of sweat and water and the natural dampness of the cellar, and as he watched, it shivered once. Around the bindings on its wrists and neck, he could see welts and sores already rising. There were other marks from ropes across its chest, wide burns from struggling, and he glanced at the bench to the side. That particular method of encouragement obviously hadn’t been all that effective, and likely had only nearly drowned it.

Elsewhere there were existing scars of all ages and thicknesses. There were claw marks, odd burns, and slices that looked as though they came from a sword or dagger. Many looked as though they’d gone untreated, or were treated just terribly.

All in all, it looked like the monster had fairly unsophisticated survival instincts.

“Enjoying your quarters?” Jaskier finally asked.

The thing startled bodily, jerking the chains loudly, and the bard could hear the guards at the doorway shift a step into the cellar.

“It’s fine,” he called, eyes not leaving the creature, distracted.

It was odd. This time, coming close to the thing seemed to ease the fire inside of him, cooling the heat pulsing through his veins instead of rekindling it, and he chewed on his lip, considering. If the monster could feign emotion, then maybe it would reward kindness with gratitude? It certainly seemed to need some compassion. It was leaning heavily in its chains, sinking into them fully, like they were the only things holding it up. Pathetic monster, indeed.

Giving himself no time to question the sanity of his movements, Jaskier set his mug on the long bench and took a few steps forward. Artists were often identified by their lack of foresight and utter unpredictability. Maybe those qualities would help him here. So he reached toward the creature and started to mess with the cloth bindings, glancing at the hands above him and the shackled feet behind it.

 _No claws_ , he thought to himself, almost disappointed.

The monster didn’t move as he worked; he was certain it didn’t even breathe. He idly wondered how long it could hold its breath. His fingers ached by the time he managed to undo the tight knots of the blindfold and gag, and he stepped back without pulling them away. If it wanted them off, it could shake them off. Like a dog shaking off fleas.

Instead of moving immediately, it waited until Jaskier had backed up nearly to the far wall, and then stirred slowly and carefully. It edged off the blindfold by moving its left bicep, and when it fell, those golden orbs contracted and tightened until they were tall and narrow and absolutely focused on him. There was something both alien and familiar in those eyes. Jaskier wondered how many times he’d been in their sight under thrall. The gag went next, carefully worked under those sharp canines until it was able to spit it out.

Jaskier expected words. He expected threats, a spell, an order. He expected violence that would only be arrested by the chains that held it.

He did not expect the monster to abruptly bend as much as it was able to vomit.

The bard jerked but kept his feet, staring. Black and red blood flecked with chunks of something unidentifiable spilled to the floor with every heave, copious amounts of dirty water thinning it all, and it felt like it continued for hours instead of minutes. When it was finished, it spit out some lingering bile and coughed hard, more water surging from its mouth and nose. Then it leaned back, resting on its heels, and it panted with the exertion.

Jaskier was somewhat discomfited by the alarm that hit him when he saw the seared wound in its flank crack at one side, red blood coloring the edge of the mark.

The monster didn’t seem to notice or care, though. Its eyes were only closed for a moment before it fixed that unnatural golden gaze on him again. Jaskier stared right back, hoping he didn’t look as nervous as he felt, and defiantly jerked his chin upright.

 _What were you expecting, to break me?_ he thought firmly, just in case the thing could read his thoughts. Instead, it looked at him carefully, travelled his body and paused on the exposed bandages and open salve on the lesser wounds, and then it inhaled deeply. If it was swayed by the smell of its own mess, it didn’t show it. Then its mouth opened, and it spoke…words Jaskier wasn’t exactly planning on hearing.

“You’re healing. That’s good.” The voice was low, rough, and Jaskier gaped.

“I’m…yes, I’m healing. Very well, in fact, under the care of Tildan, the village shaman. What would you care?” he snapped, uneasy.

There was a beat before the monster leaned forward and sniffed the air in an obvious manner, something strange in its gaze. But whatever it had found more wrong with the situation than Jaskier could see, it didn’t comment on.

“I don’t,” it muttered, shifting to get more comfortable and closing its eyes, and the bard felt a flare of anger and hurt in his chest. Why it mattered that the thing didn’t care about him, he didn’t know. But it made his tone sharp. “Of course you don’t care. I’m just your thrall, right? Something to be used and tossed aside. And if that’s true, then why not just return my damn memory?”

Here, it looked back at him, something too close to pain in its gaze. “You should leave, Jaskier. Get on Roach and ride to Oxenfurt. Ask around for Triss Merigold. She’ll help you.”

Slugging half his ale to organize his thoughts, Jaskier set the tankard down and crossed his arms over his chest as he stared at the thing.

“Oh, so is this how a thrall works? You give me orders, and I follow them? You’re telling me to get on _my horse_ and leave for _my town_ , and ask for someone who is likely going to simply bespell me again?”

Closing its eyes slowly, the creature said firmly, “Jaskier, in no world, in no time, in no reality, no matter the situation, will Roach _ever_ be your horse.”

Here, Jaskier felt an inkling of doubt in his chest. It made sense. The mare responded well to him, had allowed him to feed her apples and brush her down, and hadn’t nipped at him once. But the sheer vehemence of the monster made him wonder, for a moment, if perhaps it had set a thrall upon the horse as well.

“Forget the horse,” he said abruptly, waving away the absurdity of the concept. Who would think a monster could cast spells on a horse? “Let’s instead discuss the way you took my memory and nearly killed me in the forest two days past.”

Whatever color was left in the pale skin leached away at that comment. Those citrine eyes were still shuttered to the world, and its head rested wearily on its arm.

“Hmm,” it hummed under its breath. That was uncannily familiar. “Let’s.”

When it said nothing else, Jaskier blew out a breath and started to pace back and forth. “We arrived here. You tried to make me play in the tavern for money. You took me into the wilds to do gods know what. You were attacked by the guardian of the woods. It tried to save me from you. You destroyed it or ran it off – there’s no real consensus on that – and the villagers arrived just in time to keep you from hurting me.”

Jaskier spoke aloud, trying to put together the current state of his existence. It was utterly unsettling that he didn’t remember much. He remembered his parents. His holdings. The title he’d willingly sacrificed for freedom on the road, for freedom of destiny and desire. But after random wandering brought him to Posada…everything faded in the same way wine muddied the memories of a night before.

And Jaskier was not as young as his complexion would advise.

Glancing at the creature, he did the math.

He hadn’t lost days or weeks in thralldom to this monster. No, he’d lost _months_. Years, even.

Potentially decades.

 _Decades_.

There was hot, fiery anger burning up from the depths of his lungs, almost breaching his lips. But even in his rage, he couldn’t miss the slight flinch from the human features. Whether from pain or false guilt, there was a shadow on the thing’s face. The sight held his tongue, but just barely.

It blinked its eyes open, frowned, and cocked its head. Then it licked its lips, unconsciously glanced at the tankard beside the bard, and redirected its attention to Jaskier as it spoke again.

“We arrived here. You offered to perform in the tavern to earn our meal and were denied. We went into the wild so I could hunt and find us food. I led us into the Leshen’s lair on accident. It tried to kill you, so I killed it. And when I went to check on you after the battle, I was captured by these oh so very worldly and good townspeople.”

Jaskier didn’t move. He couldn’t. He felt his rage sizzle into nothingness, and didn’t even try to grasp it again. There was no tone in the thing’s voice, no weave of magic or emulated emotion. It stated such things like it was discussing the weather or reading the title of a book. Even when it sighed softly and leaned back again, Jaskier could find no reason not to believe it.

Except for his missing memories, of course.

“Some of that lines up with the accounts of the villagers,” he allowed cautiously, and the monster hummed under its breath again. “They said they stopped me from performing, to save me from becoming an object of your amusement at my expense.”

It chuckled softly, the sound tapering off into a cough, and a trickle of red blood slicked its side and soaked its trousers. More water came from its lungs and splashed over its chest, diluting the color to a dull pink. Jaskier stared at its twisted face while listening to the response. “Got that switched, bard.” It inhaled sharply and shifted again, breaths hitched for a moment. “Usually it’s _your_ amusement at _my_ expense.”

Distantly, Jaskier heard the far-off sound of Tildan’s voice, and he worried the inside of his cheek with his teeth for a long moment before he finally asked the question that he so desperately wanted an answer to.

“Why won’t you let me go?” he demanded harshly, and the monster sunk deeper in its place with an odd sound. When it looked up at him, there was something strangely fond in its glassy cat eyes.

“Jaskier, I tell you truly: I’ve been trying to get you to leave since the first time we met.”

* * *

It had been days since Geralt had seen the bard. Had to have been. But in the gloom of the cellar, he couldn’t be sure exactly how much time had passed. It was long enough, though, that he was distantly worried, even though Jaskier’s vibrant smell permeated the shaman’s robes.

Tildan’s visit the day before had been less than pleasant.

It wasn’t the first time he’d been captured by ignorant villagers. He had experienced being muzzled and chained like a wild thing. But the sheer tenacity and focus on the shaman’s face as he’d ordered his torture had been disturbing. There was less fear there than he had expected, far less; there was even less hesitation on the part of the villagers whom had carried out his will. It was the cold calculation and unsettling amount of experience in the shaman and menfolk’s hands that had made him fight.

The effort had been futile, as expected.

They’d set a burning blade to his side at first, and that, he’d at least grit his teeth and bore without moving. The pressure the Leshen had used to break his armor and force it into his own side had broken the ribs under the hit, but the bleeding was the more concerning thing. He’d been branded before, gushing wounds sealed shut with red-hot metal, but they’d been cooled after. A dip in a river, the press of treated rags – something. But they’d branded the wound out of existence and let him be. And that was the problem. The scorched seal was still burning, even now, a day later, and it hadn’t settled dully into place. There were reasons healers cooled burns, and it wasn’t just to mute the pain. Without cooling, it had no flexibility, no movement, and so the wound was just as delicate now as it was when it was openly bleeding.

But the attention he’d suffered under Tildan’s observation the night before, that had started to crack even his mental fortitude.

It had been a long time since he’d drowned.

The last time he’d felt water pour into his lungs, a simple dive for old manuscripts sealed away in a magic chest had turned deadly without warning. A nest of sirens had attacked him from above and below and shattered his small boat with their talons. He’d left his crossbow with the rest of his gear on the land, and had been protected only by his gloves and combat trousers. They’d dragged him down, again and again, holding him under longer and longer until there was no air to be found. Then they’d tired of the game and taken off with piercing screams, and he’d floated. It was only the last pulse of Killer Whale in his system that had saved him. It had given his lungs just enough prompting to expel the water, to climb for sunlight, to reach for life.

That had been years ago, and he still had nightmares of sinking and drowning, alone in the cold, black depths.

Strapped to the long bench with chain and rope, a rough cloth tied about his head, they’d poured water over his face again and again and again. They hadn’t stopped, not for hours. At first, they didn’t even ask questions. And when they did, he spent any energy and air he had just coughing up the stagnant water they’d poured over him. They didn’t get any answers from him, and they were not pleased. Tildan had watched over the proceedings with indifference, stepping in every few buckets to yank at his collar with a firm hand, demanding he release the bard from his thrall, asking the nature of the curse.

He vaguely remembered responding with something rude at least once, and that had earned him the loss of what gentleness had been left in his capture. They’d torn off his shirt and removed the last of his gear. When they set him back in his chains near the far wall, they hadn’t let him finish coughing up the last of the water before they put the gag and blindfold back in place. It hung heavy in his lungs, making his throat burn with every breath, and he felt the ache in his side flare and ebb with every hard-fought inhale.

But it didn’t matter. The coldness of the cellar seeping into his bones, the weight in his chest, the ache in his limbs – none of it mattered. He couldn’t do anything about any of it, not while Jaskier was still in danger.

Because he _was_ in danger.

All it would take was the bard remembering the wrong thing at the wrong time, foolishly shouting his memory to the clouds, and he would be bound and tied with him. The village thought he was in thrall under him. That was far safer than the truth, that Jaskier followed him willingly, that a man was friends with a monster. Until he could get either of them away from the town, that danger would only grow.

But his options were somewhat limited.

Geralt couldn’t break the cuffs. In fact, all the metal burned where it touched his skin, the collar around his throat the most painful. Likely it was poorly smithed iron enriched with dimeritium; he had enough inherent magic to cause a reaction. He had sunk into meditation after Tildan’s last visit, pushing away any sliver of panic over his literal muzzling, and focused on healing. But even that hadn’t been enough. Controlled metabolism notwithstanding, he was thirsty, the blood and water and leftover potions in his stomach were causing him a special level of discomfort, and the thought and smell of food in the air made his guts both growl and heave.

But he’d vomited before while gagged. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. He’d smelled bile for a week after, and it had taken days for his sense of smell to return to full strength. The taste had lingered for longer than normal, too, the updated scent-memory playing hell with his taste buds for a time. He wasn’t eager to repeat the experience.

He was deep in meditation, trying to quell the insistent nausea, when he heard a voice he hadn’t expected.

“Enjoying your quarters?”

Jaskier’s voice cut through him like a blade, and he jerked in place, pulling back and swallowing the grunt when his collar burned worse. But it was helping the bard, if not himself. The longer he was subjected to the bonds, the weaker his core grew, and the less impact the rebounded spells would have on the human. Recognizing this tiredly, he let the gag muffle his groan as he leaned willingly into the cuffs and collar. The shackles around his biceps and wrists were cutting into his skin, and his ankles were already bleeding from the sharp metal. It was worth it, if only to never see that level of pain on Jaskier’s face ever again.

When he’d attempted Aard on the torch, he had guessed that the spells had faulted under the Leshen’s own magic. Guessed, but had to prove. They’d rebounded spectacularly, in a way he’d never heard of. Then again, he’d never heard of a Leshen that could perform actual spells. It explained several creatures he’d come across while setting the trap for the deer. They were turned inside out, their fur and skin blown away, innards eviscerated from bone, the entire corpse laid out like a trophy. They’d been warnings, he knew now, dire warnings against entering the forest. He’d known something was wrong, and still dragged the bard into the damn woods.

So that same spell had been thrown at him, he’d dodged, and Jaskier had been a breath away from becoming a new warning. Quen had caused a rebound, caused the spell to flip his magic inside out, to pull his own Signs from Jaskier’s core instead of his own. And the human was never made for magic, never was meant to be a conduit for chaos, passive or active. Something had to be sacrificed to strengthen the human’s core to allow the Signs: his memories, any and all recollections associated with the magic user, apparently.

And Geralt couldn’t count the number of years the bard had known him, not on the fingers of the both of them combined. If Jaskier was equally cursed and blessed with unending years as the Witcher, if his mother had lain with an elf, if the magic of the ones he knew – Yennefer, Triss, Geralt and who knows how many others – had seeped into his soul and twisted his life span, he didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. The bard was who he was, and however much time he had with him, he wouldn’t begrudge destiny.

His lack of grudgingness aside, the bard had lost years of his life. Years of memory, years of experiences. It showed in his movements, his speech. The refinement he’d developed was missing, choked by whatever rebound spell had affixed between them. It was almost an echo, who he actually _was_ versus who he would grow to become, and Geralt could see it simmering beneath the surface of his every action. He wondered if Jaskier could feel it the same.

It was a gods forsaken fucking mess.

He didn’t react to Jaskier’s call to someone outside as he shattered the silence of the cellar with his chains, and he held himself very still when he heard the bard move closer to him. He hadn’t heard signs of a weapon, but he didn’t trust his senses at the moment, not dimmed as they were by the dimeritium. Jaskier’s younger years were an unknown to him – something he abruptly regretted – and he wasn’t certain if he had been violent in his past or not. Either way, it didn’t matter. He had to deal with the now. Regrets could be rectified later.

If there was a later.

It was extremely difficult not to move when he felt the bard’s slim fingers skim his hair and work on the knots of the fabric wound around his face. He wanted them off, and staying still was the only way that was going to happen.

Even when the gag and blindfold loosened, he forced himself to wait. Waited until he heard feet scuff on dirt, far away, and Jaskier took a very shaky breath. Then he moved, slowly, carefully, pushing the blindfold away in increments, until he could look at the bard fully. He was where he expected him to be, far enough away that he was in no danger from the Witcher, and he silently approved of his caution.

Then he slowly worked out the gag, wincing as it caught on his fangs, seeing Jaskier focus on their sharp points uncomfortably. When he finally managed to spit it out, it hung loosely around his neck with the blindfold, and he inhaled deeply.

A mistake, as it turned out.

The thick smell of blood and sweat and ale flooded his previously covered senses, immediately turning his stomach, and he doubled over as much as he could to vomit. It burned, burned like fire and the worst archespore venom. His eyes were open enough to see red blood, black blood, and chunks of venison he hadn’t yet digested. It was thin and watery with everything he’d swallowed the day before. His controlled metabolism meant it was all still sitting in his stomach, waiting for the White Honey that wouldn’t come to allow him to take the nutrients available; even days later, the leftover potions in his blood kept him from taking any of the sustenance offered. It was unfortunate side effect of the particular combination he had taken, and if it hadn’t saved Jaskier’s life, he would be frustrated.

As it was, he hurt, his stomach was turning, and the damn shackles just made everything worse.

Even when he was done purging his stomach, his lungs clamored for more air, and he continued coughing like a diseased thing. He felt water in his nose and mouth coming up from low in his chest, and he felt something twist and a flare of pain somewhere in his side. Grimacing at the taste and the increase in agony along his flank, Geralt swallowed the last of his nausea and leaned back, panting and dizzy. He could feel the shock and insecurity from across the room, the emotions like a living thing against his senses, and he forced himself to open his eyes. There were swirling black dots in his sight, and he inhaled deeply, trying to push them away. It hurt more than he expected. The thick slice along the left side of his face was an entire symphony of torture in and of itself. Silver was for monsters, but it fucking hurt Witchers, too. That deep wrongness in his side didn’t ease with his movement, either, and it sucked what air he’d managed to draw inside his aching chest.

But he had to check the bard.

So he did, looking along the bandages that were neatly applied, all white and free of new blood. He ignored the glare on Jaskier’s face, so similar to when he insulted the bard’s singing or interrupted him mid-story, and instead caught a glimmer of exposed salve. He kept his mouth closed as he inhaled, targeting the strange odor. It was familiar, and he identified it and shoved it deep into his scent-memory without changing his expression. That was _definitely_ interesting. Not helpful, not at the moment, but interesting. But he confirmed there was no fresh copper in the air around the bard, just old iron.

Pushing the new information aside, he looked back up at Jaskier and fought the urge to speak with him as he normally would. Sharp barbs wouldn’t be met with that odd mix of endless cynicism and optimism, not now. Instead, his voice grated from abuse as he said quietly, “You’re healing. That’s good.”

The look on the bard’s face would have been priceless in any other situation. It wasn’t often he could strike him mute – even a moment of blessed silence was usually hard-earned – but there was no humor in the other man’s retort. “I’m…yes, I’m healing. Very well, in fact, under the care of Tildan, the village shaman. What would you care?”

Almost without trying, Geralt could smell the sentries just outside. He checked again to be sure, and they were where he last detected them. He wasn’t sure the range of their hearing, though, and tried to figure out the best way he could protect Jaskier. Even if it wasn’t the truth, even if it tore at parts of him he thought were long dead, he had to protect the bard. The same reaction that drove the narrative of the fight, that made him deny Jaskier’s friendship again and again, made him force the words from his mouth.

“I don’t,” he finally said shortly, easing back against his chains. The burn was worse with Jaskier this close, the borrowed core trying to pull at his combat Signs, but he didn’t move. Couldn’t, not easily, and not with his side aching so deeply he could barely draw a breath.

“Of course you don’t care. I’m just your thrall, right? Something to be used and tossed aside. And if that’s true, then why not just return my damn memory?”

He didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing. The words were so harsh, so pained, that Geralt found himself speaking without worry of the ears nearby, his voice naturally low.

“You should leave, Jaskier. Get on Roach and ride to Oxenfurt. Ask around for Triss Merigold. She’ll help you.”

It was the only plan he had. The bard was too confused and too manipulated to be talked into releasing him. So the next best thing was to get him out of the town, safely far away in a modern city. Triss was one of the best healing sorceresses he knew. If anyone could fix what he’d done, it would be her. She was in Novigrad, last he knew, but Oxenfurt was Jaskier’s proclaimed home. It was filled with people who would keep him safe, safer than the Witcher had managed. Once Triss heard he was looking for her, she’d travel to him, he knew.

There was an added advantage in that plan, in that it got Roach out of the village, as well.

He watched with forced indifference as Jaskier drank the ale that was teasing his senses. It made his stomach roil, but his mouth was so dry it ached. His teeth throbbed with his heartbeat. He’d lost a lot of blood – he was intimately familiar with the sensation. But the unnaturally strong thirst seemed to flow from the shackles, another wonderful symptom of the dimeritium on his system.

“Oh, so is this how a thrall works? You give me orders, and I follow them? You’re telling me to get on _my horse_ and leave for _my town_ , and ask for someone who is likely going to simply bespell me again?” Jaskier asked as he wrapped his arms tightly around his chest.

Geralt didn’t roll his eyes out of deference to his injured face, but it was a close thing. Instead, he closed them firmly against the siren call of the ale and stated decisively, “Jaskier, in no world, in no time, in no reality, no matter the situation, will Roach _ever_ be your horse.”

He couldn’t remember how many times he’d told the bard not to touch her before he finally allowed the man access to the mare. It was good he had done so, too, since soon after he’d had to ride across mountains and through forests to save the bard. Roach had fallen for Jaskier quite easily, charmed by sugar cubes and fruit, and he didn’t resent the man’s attention to his mount. She was a good horse, loyal and brave, and carried him into more dangers than any horse ought face. She deserved the softness the bard brought with him.

But Roach was his. End of discussion.

“Forget the horse,” the bard said suddenly. “Let’s instead discuss the way you took my memory and nearly killed me in the forest two days past.”

Geralt felt his skin go cold. Stated that way, there was no denying exactly how terrible of a situation this was. He had done exactly that, without argument. So he kept his eyes closed and pressed his right cheek into his arm, hoping to ease some of the sharp pain from his left side. He hummed softly and responded, “Let’s.”

There was a heartbeat of silence before the bard began to pace, and his steps were loud and almost annoying in the cellar’s quiet. But it grounded him, kept him from drifting with the fire and agony, and he forced himself to focus on it.

“We arrived here. You tried to make me play for money. You took me into the wilds to do gods know what. You were attacked by the guardian of the woods. It tried to save me from you. You destroyed it or ran it off – there’s no real consensus on that – and the villagers arrived just in time to keep you from hurting me.”

The ache that had taken residence in his chest grew with every word, something uneasy squirming behind his heart at the utterly horrific implications in the recount. What the shaman had drilled into Jaskier’s head, Geralt would gladly take the old man’s tongue for. But he cooled his anger before he opened his eyes, lest he frighten the bard. He couldn’t stop the automatic glance at the ale as his lips cracked with thirst, but he licked away the welling blood and met Jaskier’s blue eyes calmly.

“We arrived here. You offered to play in the tavern to earn our meal and were denied. We went into the wild so I could hunt and find us food.” He put no more emphasis on this correction than the rest, knowing that the truth was best spoken with a steady voice. “I led us into the Leshen’s lair on accident. It tried to kill you, so I killed it. And when I went to check on you after the battle, I was captured by these oh so very worldly and good townspeople.” Even the last of the words, sarcastic in their meaning, were smoothly stated.

He looked at Jaskier for a moment longer before a beat of his heart sent another stab of pain through him. Leaning away from it subconsciously, he waited for Jaskier’s verdict.

It was closer to what he wanted than he expected, but still not close enough.

“Some of that lines up with the accounts of the villagers.” Geralt grunted softly under his breath, slightly surprised that they’d told the bard any truth at all. “They said they stopped me from performing, to save me from becoming an object of your amusement at my expense.”

The sheer inaccuracy of that particular statement caught the Witcher by surprise. He laughed softly, the noise only briefly making it from his throat before he was caught in a wave of agony from the dimeritium and his many wounds. His flank flared with pain inside and out, and he felt a flush of cold from under his ribs. Coughing, he tasted blood and swallowed it immediately, ignoring it for the moment. “Got that switched, bard,” he murmured gently, head swimming. The dimeritium was restricting his healing, he realized. It was cancelling out the magic in his blood, his body forced to work only from his mutations – mutations he didn’t have any nourishment to power.

That…was a problem.

So he moved enough to take more pressure from his side, even as his weight pressed the shackles further into his ankles, and he fought to inhale regularly against the new pain.

“Usually it’s _your_ amusement at _my_ expense.”

He heard the sound of the shaman outside the cellar at the same time Jaskier did, and he was tiredly unsurprised when the bard’s words came again, sharply demanding. “Why won’t you let me go?” he asked harshly, and there was a familiar growl in those words, the obvious results of his long years with Geralt singing through the demand.

The Witcher choked on the mix of fear and affection that burned through him, hoping like hell that the guards didn’t hear the unusual quality in the carefree bard’s voice. He simultaneously wondered if it was that feral undertone that Roach responded to. He knew he didn’t clear those emotions from his eyes as he answered Jaskier, given that the other man was looking at him like he’d grown an extra head.

“Jaskier, I tell you truly: I’ve been trying to get you to leave since the first time we met.”

Jaskier twitched, held in place by his statement or the look on his face – he didn’t know which. But then the bard suddenly shifted and swept the ale up from the bench with a steady hand, a fierce expression on his face.

“You can’t get rid of this damn thrall if you die. Drink,” he ordered, holding the cup at an angle just inches from Geralt’s face. “And don’t bite me,” he added as an afterthought.

But the Witcher didn’t move, he couldn’t. He simply stared at the bard, something warm coursing through him at the obvious concern even in the face of the creature that had taken his memories. The cloying smell of the brew clogged his senses, distracting him long enough that he missed the sound of footsteps approaching.

He had just given a small nod in thanks and lowered his head to sip at the tankard when Tildan’s staff swung through the air with surprising accuracy.

It struck the cup and knocked it clear to the other side of the cellar, the clatter of it striking the dirt overshadowed by Jaskier’s shocked cry and Geralt’s snarl at the shaman. The bard cradled his hand, the bandages there blooming red, and he backed away from the Witcher quickly.

“You foolish child!” Tildan shouted as he helped the bard on his way with a hand in his doublet. “What were you thinking?!”

Surging against his bindings, Geralt snapped, “Leave him!” But Tildan paid him no attention, instead focusing on Jaskier with a sharp look.

“You unbound it! You were offering it drink! Are you really clear of its influence beyond its hold on your memory?” he snapped, shaking him in his grip. Geralt growled under his breath at the unabashed fear on Jaskier’s face, and his fangs slipped out of his mouth.

“Leave him be,” he repeated, the growing rumble from his throat and flashing teeth an obvious threat.

The shaman gasped aloud at the display and fumbled to place his staff between the humans and the Witcher. Even trussed and bloodied, the White Wolf was not broken. His eyes nearly glowed in the dim cellar, and he glared at the older man with promise.

“Harm him again, and I will kill you.”

Tildan’s hands rightfully shook on the yew wood. But his bravado was only lost for a moment before he hollered for the guards at the entry. They came immediately, swords sheathed and blackjacks in hand, and set upon him with a ferocity driven by terror. Geralt wasn’t able to avoid any of the blows, but his only concern was the very possessive fist the shaman had on the bard’s shirt collar.

One strike caught his side while another snapped against his jaw. He felt blood spurt and bone break, and sunk into irresistible darkness.


	5. Hold Fast

Jaskier sat on his borrowed bed, staring at the far wall, flexing his right hand.

Again.

He’d been sitting on the straw mattress for almost a full day, not so much locked in the room as he was highly discouraged from leaving. Tildan had not been happy with his actions, not in the least. He had apologized for the hard smack to his hand, but only once, and only while he was rewrapping the newly oozing wounds. He had muttered something about ill babies and three legged calves, but Jaskier had been wallowing in enough shock and shame to not make any sense of it whatsoever. The shaman had smoothed some more of that odd salve on his injuries, wrapped them, and then left with a curt explanation that his meals would be fetched for him from now on.

So, not locked up. Just not free.

The smell of food permeated the small hut. He’d been brought a plate of lamb and bread, some green vegetable he couldn’t quite identify, and a large mug of ale. He hesitated to partake, though. Somehow, when he reached for it, the wounds on his wrist flared with a sharp spike of pain, and he remembered the monster in the cellar.

How it had moved slowly and carefully after its muzzle had been loosed. How it had spoken to him plainly and honestly, without hesitation or malice. How it had looked at him with surprise and not a little bit of gratitude when he offered it drink. How it had been…well, almost human.

Almost, but for the fangs, the eyes, and the skin-map of scars that told of surviving what no human could ever survive.

Almost.

It was the _almost_ that was driving Jaskier mad, because _almost_ didn’t count for much in the world. It didn’t count in stroking a chord on his lute. It didn’t count in Gwent. It didn’t count in firing a crossbow at a diving harpy or dodging the sharps claws of an alp upon rematerialization.

And how he knew some of these things, he didn’t remember. If it was some memory transference or a result of his long thralldom, he didn’t know. What he did know, though, was that no matter the ill intent of the creature, he had been with it longer than the villagers. It knew him, as much as a monster like that would care to. It had obviously kept him alive for some time.

If the indications he saw in the end of their previous conversation was anything to go by, it had protected him before. Willingly.

_Almost human._

Tildan had also protected him, fed him, clothed him. He had wanted for nothing the past few days, and any question he’d posed had been answered immediately. The village life that continued on outside his window had been normal, happy. He could see Roach if he craned his head around the edge of the shutters, and she had been fed and watered regularly.

But there were some tells, there, that he identified and didn’t know how he did.

The women kept their children closer than was necessarily warranted, even with the creature locked in the cellar. When a youngster coughed, it was abruptly carted inside with a flurry of motion that seemed almost frantic. The menfolk carried their tools like weapons, growing grim when they spoke in hushed tones amongst themselves. Two cows bore new bulls in the lot across the way, and the arrivals were not met with the excitement and relief he would have expected. Instead, the calves were inspected carefully and thoroughly, the men silent in their work; a young woman was posted with them after and reported on their feeding habits with curious seriousness. Watching one group of villagers wander out towards the fields to work, he realized something odd. From his viewpoint in the hut, he could see all the way down the main lane to the entry gate of the town. There were twin pillars holding up a wooden joist, and the midpoint was marked by a large deer skull with a bell hung just below it.

But it wasn’t…wasn’t a deer skull. Couldn’t be – it was far, _far_ too large.

The empty eyes were massive and deep. The nasal bone was far more elongated than on any other deer skull he’d seen. And the rack of antlers attached was absolutely huge, wider than a man was tall, and more fit as one seen on a moose than a normal buck. They were unnervingly symmetrical, the beams and pearls absolutely even. The points of each tine were dangerously sharp. And while the whole of the thing should’ve been whitened nearly to snow by the sunlight, only the skull reflected that.

The rack itself had fresh, bloody velvet hanging from it in shredded, stringy sheets. The gore swayed in a sharp breeze, and he could see crimson drops of blood rain down over the dry dirt below.

The longer he stared at it, the more eerie the feeling came that the missing eyes were actually _looking_ at him, staring at him, sucking him into those cavernous midnight holes.

Uneasy, Jaskier backed quickly away from the window and glanced at his arms as he shivered. Small bumps raised upon his skin and disappeared beneath the bandages covering his wounds. Something strangely foreboding slipped over him and he shivered again, crossing his arms over his chest. A dim feeling of dread and fear made his chest tighten painfully.

Before he could tell himself he was being childish, he turned to the table at the far end of the room and hurried towards it. His clothes, mended and cleaned, had been placed there the day before. Pulling on a long-sleeved tunic, he felt the unsteady feeling slowly ease from him. He exhaled sharply and shook his head at his foolishness. He was an idiot. It was just a deer skull, nothing more. He’d seen thousands like it, he was sure. Nothing strange to the thing at all.

So engrossed in his self-chiding, he almost missed it as he turned back to the bed.

There was an open chest on the floor underneath the table, the lid propped open by the sheer number of items within it. It hadn’t been there the day before.

It completely distracted him from his previous fear. Curiosity was part of his charm, Jaskier knew, so he knelt and eased the long, shallow trunk to the top of the table, wincing as the weight pulled on his injuries. But he ignored the stabbing sensation and started to pull things from the chest. It was an assortment of gear and equipment, all of it black and silver, much of it coated in dark burgundy splatter. Frowning, tossing a look over his shoulder towards the door, Jaskier carefully reached into the mess and began to separate it. There was a set of spaulders, a breastplate and shirt of chainmail, two bracers, and thick leather cuisses. Underneath it all was a pair of swords in matching scabbards, only their hilts betraying a difference. One had a cross-guard set perpendicular to the blade, while the other had a V shaped cross-guard instead. The pommels were different, as well, unusual symbols cast into the metal. Interested, he pulled both out an inch past their rain guards. One was darker, its blade folded over and again, clean and oiled. The other was blinding bright, a solid cast, but worn with use.

Unlike the first, the second one had red and black flecks of gore dried onto its surface, and the smell of blood and something acidic wafted from the edge.

Wrinkling his nose, Jaskier shoved them back into place and ran his hands over the gear again. One vambrace was crushed nastily, pocked holes hidden throughout the studs, and he blanched as he noted an actual tooth broken off in the leather. Dropping it, he looked over at the breastplate, wondering if his math of the monster’s injuries was correct. On the left side of the stiffened leather and steel-bracketed chest piece, there was a noticeable dent, exactly where the creature’s seared flank wound rested. The plate had cracked and bent in; flipping it over, he wasn’t surprised to see dried blood on it, or on the broken chainmail in a corresponding location.

What surprised him was the sap.

He stared at the amber liquid hard, confused. Tildan had stated there was a fight between the guardian and the monster. Yes, it had also fought some random necrophages in a nearby bog. But the sap had come from the forest. It smelled like trees and the wild road. The sap came from that fight. Absolutely.

And, maybe it was Jaskier’s fault, but he’d rather assumed the guardian of the forest had been human.

The force it would take to bend and break the armor was not something that could be achieved by man, not unless there were five others behind him. Even if a man could produce such a strike, maybe mounted, any weapon would be steel or iron. It wouldn’t be green wood that still bled sap. And green wood wouldn’t bend and break this type of armor.

He set the gear back to rights as his thoughts chased themselves like a dog after a cat. The anxious feeling from before returned, and he swallowed it back as he looked through the other items in the chest.

A dagger. A small pouch and belt.

The flat of the blade was engraved with the head of a wolf, and it was light and completely balanced in his hand. It was as though the weapon was made for him, not the creature. His stature was much less than the monster’s; there was no way they’d have the same grip on such a small arm. Setting it back on the table, he turned to the pouch.

It wasn’t empty.

Resting on the soft, pitted bottom of the pouch, there was a silver chain and medallion. The chain was twisted and nearly knotted in some places, the thick clasp shattered, two damaged links barely hanging onto their fellows. The medallion was a curiosity. It appeared singly thrown, a snarling wolf’s head with ruby chip eyes staring at him from the depths of the satchel. There was a mixture of red and black dots across the face, exactly the same as what was on the edge of the bright sword.

As he stared at it, something both painful and numbing started to curl in his head.

He _knew_ this. Knew it.

Slowly he reached forward, some part of him wondering if the head would come alive and bite at his finger. Instead, it started to shiver gently, the vibration intensifying as he grew closer, and a soft yellow light seeped from the deepest parts of its carvings. He didn’t stop, though, and let his fingertips brush the blood-splattered silver.

_He glanced over from the side of his bay gelding. The white-haired head dipped deeply enough it was almost a bow, and the woman scoffed without a smile. But her words were warmer than her countenance._

_“Take care,” she said, arms folded over her chest._

_Then a low, surly voice cut across the clearing, and he found himself hiding a smile in his horse’s mane._

_“I prefer to look after others. It turns out better in the long run.”_

_And that, the bard knew, was the truth._

He jerked back from the table with a sharp cry as the agony behind his eyes spiked exponentially. He fell to his knees and then scrambled backwards awkwardly, putting as much space between the table and himself as he could in as hurried and graceless a manner as he was capable. There were stars dancing against the backs of his eyelids, and they burst into fireworks as his damaged back smashed into the wooden edge of the bedframe. He cried out again, his wrist twisting under him, and the surge of sharp heat from his wounds there made him gag.

He huddled against the side of the bed, odd gasping noises escaping him, and he shuddered and sobbed into his forearms where they crossed over and hugged his knees to his chest. Everything _hurt_ , everything burned and ached and throbbed, and he whimpered and curled into a smaller ball. The flare of vision and sound in his head repeated and faded like an echo. He could hear the creature’s voice, again and again, softer and softer.

_I prefer to look after others. It turns out better in the long run._

_Prefer to look after others. It turns out better._

_Look after others._

_After others._

_Others._

Then it faded fully, and he shivered miserably. It took time – minutes, maybe hours – before the unbearable agony in his head stopped resonating with the pain wrenched from his injuries. Then everything sort of evened into an uncomfortable burn under his skin, similar and yet completely different than the burn that had previously tempered in his blood. He still shook with it, little sizzles arching through him with the spasms, and he finally raised his head to the room again.

The sun had moved, but how much, he couldn’t tell through the thick breach of tears that hung on his lashes. He dashed them away quickly, sniffling, and stared at the table with fear and confusion. It felt juvenile to be so afraid of a trinket in a pouch, but he still had to rally his nerves for long moments before he could force himself to his feet. The stretch against his back took his breath, and he sunk onto the bed with a soft gasp. Holding himself up with his right hand was a mistake; he hissed and jerked it to his chest, the fingers of his left hand wrapping uselessly around the sodden bandage there. He bit his lip and stared at the fresh crimson seeping under the fabric, and finally shook his head.

Tildan wouldn’t be pleased. He would see the damage and ask how it had happened. He would find out about Jaskier’s poking about the chest, about the medallion, about the utterly terrifying effect it had on him. It wouldn’t do much to put himself further in the healer’s good graces.

Then the thought came: what if he could ask the monster?

Nearly worrying his lip bloody with the question, he finally pushed away the idea as he yanked the hem of his sleeve down over the bandage, hiding it. He’d been summarily banned from the creature’s presence, and he didn’t have the skill or predilection to sneak into the converted dungeon. True, his father had ensured he had the best fencing trainer in the land before he’d abdicated his title, but rapier skills were of little help in maneuvering through the dark and dodging sentries.

Before his train of thought could go so far off the rails as to land him in even more trouble, Jaskier forced himself to stand, grimacing at the long, painful burn in his legs and shoulders, and moved carefully over to the table.

The wolf’s head stared out at him from its place in the pouch, unmoving but for the subtle vibrations that danced it a hair’s breadth across the plush bottom. It snagged on one of the odd divots, and that caught the bard’s attention. Something else was pulling at him, some odd draw to the pouch, and he had no choice but to follow the urge.

On muscle memory he didn’t know he had, Jaskier avoided the medallion and pulled up the soft material to look underneath.

Coiled beneath the false bottom were two lute strings of differing thickness.

He stared at the thin metal as his stomach twisted. He knew at a glance that they were the correct lengths for his own instrument, sitting nearly forgotten in the corner. He knew it was made by the same crafter who’d formed the ones currently on his lute. He knew they were the two strings most prone to breakage, and often needed replacement before the others.

All this he knew immediately, unerringly.

What he _didn’t_ know was why the monster who’d had him under thrall felt it useful or wise or even necessary to carry around replacement strings for his lute. Did it find his humiliation and fear as he danced and sang in taverns so enjoyable that it refused to allow him a single night’s reprieve? Maybe it had a more nefarious purpose in mind – the thin strings would make an excellent garrote for his delicate neck. Maybe it broke the lute on the regular, teasing the bard with his precious instrument’s destruction before allowing him to repair it enough to earn coin.

But…maybe, and maybe it was the open-minded poet and artist’s heart inside him making him think these things, just maybe…

Maybe it carried them because it _could_ , because Jaskier might _need_ them.

Of course, there was the potential that Jaskier was unusually difficult to control without music. Or it could be that music itself was part of the thrall-spell. Or…

Maybe it did care for its thrall’s happiness, in its own twisted sense.

The unease from before returned with a vengeance, and he put everything back as he’d found it, studiously avoiding even looking at the wolf’s head. It called to him, that spark and flash of memory, but he couldn’t trust it. Such a thing could’ve been planted just for his redirection if he tried to break out of his thrall. It could be nothing more than a false memory placed there to keep him pliant and controlled and believing in the monster’s gentleness. He didn’t know the woman from the vision, though she’d looked a healer and a priestess. He didn’t remember the horse he’d been by, but he recognized Roach. And the few seconds of watching the creature carefully check her tack, correcting the saddle-girth with sure hands, he had seen something close to peace in its face. And when it had turned to practically bow to the healer-priestess and murmured words in the same tone, the same voice as the one it had used in the cellar…

_“You’re healing. That’s good.”_

…Jaskier’s heart flipped for a beat as a heavy knock sounded on the door, jolting him out of his thoughts brutally.

Jumping like he was a child caught sneaking sweets, he turned quickly and faced the entry.

“It’s not locked,” he called in greeting, unsure how else to answer such a request for access to a home that was not his in a village he didn’t know. It didn’t seem to matter, because the door creaked open slowly, cool spring air and the smells of the evening spilling into the room.

His heart did an odd lurch and skipped a beat as Tildan stepped inside. The shaman’s face was calm but stern, and Jaskier wondered if he’d been found out. But the old man’s eyes didn’t move towards the far table, only holding the bard in focus.

“I’m pleased you’re awake, child. You have a guest; I assume you can travel a short distance well enough?” The question was practically rhetorical and had a bit of admonishment in it. Jaskier winced appropriately and nodded. “Of course. And I didn’t…I didn’t apologize for before. I am sorry. I don’t know why I visited the monster. I thought it might talk to me.”

Already halfway turned out the hut, the healer paused and cocked his head. “Did it?” Again, that strange feeling tightened in his chest, and he lied without knowing why. “Not in any manner that was useful, I’m afraid.”

Sighing, the other man’s shoulders drooped a bit, and he rubbed at his beard for a moment while fixing a patient but concerned look. “I can understand your frustration, truly, but you must trust me when I tell you that it will only spin lies and falsehoods in order to save its own skin. There’s nothing to be gained in trying to converse with a beast. You’ve better luck getting a pig to compose verse.”

Jaskier’s lips twisted into a tight smile, and he ignored the blatant inaccuracy of the shaman’s response.

 _It told me to leave it, to let it to its fate here and move on. It told me to run. It didn’t seem too worried about its own hide then,_ he thought as he followed the shaman out of the cabin and down the lane away from the main gate.

“I’m surprised I have a guest,” he said aloud, slightly breathless as the slight uphill slant pulled at his sore back. There was a surge of warmth under his shirt that he knew wasn’t from the sun’s thinning rays. Tildan nodded and answered, “Myself as well, child, but he described you perfectly. He stated he had a debt to you, and wanted to make sure you were well before he travelled on. He was quite insistent.”

Frowning, Jaskier looked at him sharply. “A thrall accruing the debt of another? Is such a thing common?”

Huffing as his own age made the walk strenuous, the other man switched his staff from one hand to the other as he answered, “Might be the monster thought it a way to keep up the appearance of you having your own will. Could also be that the debt is just another thrall it placed on the poor man. I’ve no notion of the thinking of animals, but I decided seeing him may shake something loose from the curse.”

He _decided_. Jaskier felt the unilateral decision tug at an anger he didn’t know he had.

They reached a type of pavilion a minute later, a large open-sided, thatched roof shelter atop the hill, and Jaskier noted several villagers milling about a small wagon and donkey. Standing beside the cart was an older man, though he carried fewer years than Tildan, and he was dressed in badly made clothes. They were stained with mud and threadbare, and very clearly bespoke his trade. Resting his eyes on him, Jaskier recognized the foggy feeling in his head as one related to his thralldom. So he knew this man, somehow, but it was one of the memories stolen by the creature. Still, he had enough presence of mind to be courteous.

He ducked his head slightly as they approached, completely taken aback by the way the man’s face lit up in a way that the rough world didn’t normally allow.

“Master Bard! By my wits, I’m glad you’re alive! That fire burned so fiercely it shut the roads down; didn’t think anyone made it out.” His accent betrayed his status more than the stench of sheep and cow and manure did, but Jaskier didn’t care. He was so utterly confused that he gladly let the shaman take the lead.

“This is Geffry, a farmer from Mulbrydale. He sought the blacksmith’s services and apparently recognized your horse, then asked after your health,” Tildan explained to both the bard and others gathered, and there was an edge to his tone that made Jaskier abruptly realize that the farmer had not been told of his memory loss. Swallowing back his fear, his terror that he would say the wrong thing and hurt the only person who appeared to care for him, Jaskier dropped into as low a bow as his wounds could stand and responded, “The courtesy of friends is well indeed, Geffry. I thank you for your concern.” Rising, he forced himself to relax, sinking into years of political training.

“Ah, but of course, master!” Geffry gushed loudly, his fingers wrapped around the rim of a straw hat that had seen far better days. “It wouldn’t be right if I didn’t make sure you and yours were hale, seeing as you both saved me and my family.”

Freezing in place, quietly panicking at the statement, the bard still smoothly said the only thing he could think, a phrase that would hopefully not betray too much of his shock. “It was the least that could be done, given the times we live in.”

Chuckling and practically ignoring the shaman hovering nearby, the farmer plopped his hat back on his head and gave a wide grin, missing teeth highlighted by black voids. “Fair and true, that, but you do all of us an injustice by saying it was the least thing to do. When you two came down out of the fields with that deer, I knew the gods had sent you! Ah, bless ye both!”

Context clues were a large part of both political deference and public performance. Knowing how to read a crowd was imperative. So Jaskier looked over the man quickly, noting how his stomach oddly bulged, how his arms were too thin, how the lines of his neck and hollows of his cheeks were tight and pale, and he forced himself to smile softly. “Gods or not, starving isn’t a fate kind to anyone. I’m glad the venison was well liked.”

Patting his distended gut with another short laugh, Geffry gave a contented sigh and shook his head. “Aye, and the young ones were frightfully hungry. The rations you provided lasted us all the way to the Cunny of the Goose, and the measure of coin your friend refused bought us enough supplies to make it to Novigrad.” Jaskier went dizzy with the word ‘friend’, and he locked his knees.

Apparently unruffled by being summarily ignored, Tildan’s voice was calm and level as he cut in, “His companion refused your coin?” Frowning slightly, the farmer gave the shaman a strange look, glancing between him and the bard with open curiosity. “True, if it hadn’t happened to me myself, I probably wouldn’t have believed it – their kind have a reputation for demanding money, after all. But I guess their code’s as strong now as it was in ages past. How did he put it, Master Bard, when I asked him the same thing?”

Blinking, Jaskier opened his mouth to finally break the ruse, to inform the farmer of his loss of memory. Instead, his voice was quiet, nearly reverent, as he spoke words from somewhere he didn’t recognize.

_“Coin turns the world, repairs my equipment, feeds my horse and the bard – all true. But I could hear your child’s stomach growl from three miles away, and that dulled the sounds of any gold or silver you could offer.”_

Staring at the farmer, Jaskier missed the abruptly cold and concerned gaze the shaman passed over him, and Geffry nodded adamantly. “Yes, that’s the thing! Who’d think the suffering of ones like us could matter so much to his kind as to quiet the sound of coin? Aye, there’s more to Witchers than meets the eye.”

Stuck in his own head, trying and failing to place the words or the memory they apparently came from, the bard almost missed the response. But he caught the end, did a doubletake, and tried not to sound as dumb as he felt when he asked, “Wait, what?”

Tildan didn’t give the farmer a chance to repeat himself.

“I trust your heart is settled, my friend, seeing the bard is well enough. Are you staying in our fair town this eve?” But the farmer didn’t seem concerned and waved away the question. “Nay, my family awaits a bit along with a caravan we joined with for the road home. I simply paused here to get Shila’s shoe replaced.” He pet the neck of the old nag fondly and continued, “But when I saw that mare in the stable, I recognized her from your rather fussy description as you two headed into the woods. ‘But her white stripe might be going grey by the time we return’ and ‘her chestnut coat looks better without blood, you must admit’ and on and on.” He pitched his voice higher in an awful imitation of the bard, and Jaskier felt his mouth drop open a hair.

The shaman smiled magnanimously and nodded as he started to move the stunned man away in an obvious dismissal. “And I thank you for your concern for our young friend here. Please, be safe upon your journey.” Geffry nodded and grabbed the reins in his hand, obviously eager to return to his family. “Of course, thank you, master. And Master Bard! You tell that friend of yours that the next time he makes it down to Mulbrydale, stop in at my home – we’ll feast as kings, my bairns will give that mount of his a good brush, and we’ll sing tales into the morn!”

Then he started down the hill, his cart knocking loudly over the stones, and he called over his shoulder, “Best of luck to the both of you on the Path.” And then he started humming a song that tugged at the deep hollow in Jaskier’s mind, and his voice was distant as he finally started murmuring the lyrics at the far end of the clearing.

_“…wiped out your pest, got kicked in his chest. He’s a friend of humanity, so give him the rest…”_

Jaskier watched him go, feeling horribly unbalanced, and he blinked rapidly in the setting sun. There was something horrible welling up in his throat, something that tasted like bile and shame and defeat. He swallowed it down as the farmer made a turn and disappeared into the far trees, and Tildan’s hand fell on his injured shoulder, the wounds open and raw from his mistreatment of them in the hut.

But he barely felt the pain. There was a surge of nausea and fear and hopelessness and this terrifyingly, overwhelming, blanketing feeling of utter _solitude_ and _loneliness_. It seemed to hang about him like a wet blanket, soaking him through, weighing him down.

He was _suffocating_ under it all, and he wanted to crumple to the ground and sob beneath it. So he did. He didn’t hear Tildan’s shocked cry or the nearby villagers calling for help. The sound that rose from his lungs was angry, pained, and it felt like glass coming up. He pressed his arm against his mouth to muffle the noise, the smell of sap and his own blood filling his nose, and the twin sensations of overwhelming fear and prickling uncertainty spilled through his nerves. This level of confusion was a living thing, and it demanded more of him than he had to give.

He could feel something under his skin with every movement, every word, every breath. Something familiar and not, something him and not him, and he thought it might be the weight of the curse on his soul.

Even as he knelt in the dusty shelter, listening to his heart pound loudly in his ears, he could only feel the drowning pull of his dread.

It didn’t cross his mind, not even once, that it wasn’t weight upon him, but a hollowing within him.

“Come, child. Let’s see to your wounds. You’re going to be ill if you stay out here much longer.”

The bard suddenly, terribly wished he’d heeded the creature’s words. There was a sensation of danger prickling over his senses, and he couldn’t even bring the presence of mind to push it away. The bony fingers of the shaman felt like a vise against his fingers, and he knew he didn’t imagine the way they tightened with his hesitation.

Someone pulled him gently and carefully to his feet, and he hissed a breath as his back and arms and wrist began to throb in earnest. He leaned heavily on the support offered as they walked slowly back down the hill, away from the edge of the town and further in between its dark houses. He recognized almost none of it, sunk in his own strange, odd thoughts.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong. And he hadn’t a clue how poorly everything was until that moment. His missing memory, the encounters with the monster, the doubt and fear pervading the village and his own soul, the trembling medallion with its snarling wolf that gave him more doubts and questions than peace and answers…

It all paled behind two disturbing facts.

He knew, _knew_ the first stanza of the song the farmer sang.

And he knew the monster’s name was Geralt. Geralt of Rivia.

Monsters weren’t supposed to have names.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wolf's Head memory adapted from The Last Wish, where Nenneke is sending Dandelion and Geralt on their way.


	6. Too Close to the Flame

Far away, a memory and a dream all at once, he saw Kaer Morhen rising through the clouds.

His feet were sure atop the bastion’s watchtower, unbroken brick firm beneath him, and the sharp air of early spring left his lungs in a foggy billow. His eyes were unclouded, though, and he felt the heat of the sun dance along his back. The fiery rays lit up the Keep in its full glory.

Like a man passing from desert to oasis, he drunk up the sight.

The far tower rose against the mountainside, strong and unyielding, and the sunlight glinted off windows aplenty, glittering blues and greens flashing against the mortar. Thick trees heavy with their winter coats collared the walls like a fox stole on a noble’s neck. Oiled timbers, strong and unsplintered, lined the inside of the walls. Even at this distance, he could see someone running the outside curtain. They disappeared into the mural tower below the middle bailey. He could smell woodsmoke and cooking meat, the iron of the forge below the stones and the garden in the greenhouse underscoring everything with a slight metal, acrid tang.

He heard sounds of training – battle cries, grunting and laughter, calls of encouragement and taunts, the clash of metal on metal, the whoosh of magic – and it all encompassed him, soothing and warm. He closed his eyes and leaned into the breeze, something like a smile twitching at the edge of his mouth. Behind and below him, footfalls echoed through the air, and he could almost visualize fingers moving over strings as a simple tune wove through the air.

“Geralt! Come along, lest you turn into a gargoyle! Your brothers promised food fit for kings this evening, and I dare say we won’t find better once we return to the Path next week. By the way, you’ve tarried longer than usual, haven’t you?”

The voice was comfortable, the tone almost lazy, and Geralt’s teeth gleamed as his lips finally broke into a grin.

“Ah, well, guess you’ve reason to. I’ve never heard the Keep so lively before.”

And the Witcher turned, something snarky yet fond already rising through his throat –

The world shattered under freezing water that soaked him from head to waist, and he inhaled a lungful of something other than air. He choked and coughed and gagged, sinking against burning bindings. Kaer Morhen shattered in his sight, just a glimpse of the decrepit castle burning against his vision; crushed stone, scorched timbers, ghosts wailing against the deepening darkness. Another wave came, making him flinch, and when he blinked his eyes open again, he was greeted with the dim cavern of the cellar.

The cellar, the torches, the mud and blood and coldness and loneliness, it all flooded his mind like the third bucket of water they emptied over his slack form. Confused and in pain, he pulled away as much as he could, shivering through tremors brought by the icy water and the heat of his wounds. There was laughter somewhere, dark and cruel, and he couldn’t summon the energy to respond beyond a low growl.

“Time to wake up, monster,” another voice snapped, and he couldn’t focus well enough to identify the speaker. But he still let his teeth tickle his lower lip as he grimaced, and it barely had its desired effect; he could hear everyone pull back just a step.

Unbidden, the scratched charcoal words he’d once seen upon the dirty yellow pages of a book from Velen slipped across his mind like quicksilver.

_“In truth, there is naught more repulsive than these monsters that defy nature and are known by the name of Witcher. They have no place amongst decent and honest folk.”_

He flinched bodily, water spilling from his lips, and a cough turned into a low groan. Even shaking his head wouldn’t rid him of the poisonous words, so he sunk instead into a mental recount of the bestiary he’d had to memorize as a child. The continuous stream of knowledge kept him grounded even as he felt hands on his bare skin.

_Alghoul._

_Alp._

_Archespore._

One set of grubby fingers dug into the skin under his collar, pulling it from where it had embedded into his neck, and he swallowed back the keen that wanted to break through his teeth. The flood of hot blood that abruptly coated his chest made him gag again, his throat working against the knuckles that were wedged between the dimeritium and his neck, and someone laughed.

_Endrega._

_Erynia._

Some of the pressure around his wrists diminished for a moment, and he inhaled sharply as the loosened metal made another wave of burning agony burn across his skin. He trembled so hard he thought his vertebrae might be knocking against themselves, and he grit his teeth.

_Greater rotfiend._

_Ghost._

He tried to frown and couldn’t against the gag that was abruptly leashed around his head. Had he started going backwards? He couldn’t tell. His thoughts were like smoke, whispering through him and then fading as soon as he tried to grab them.

_Salma._

_Basilisk._

_Forktail._

_White Lady._

_Djinn._

Another flood of pain crossed him from inside and out, his arms throbbing as a new tightness crossed his throat. Blood-spattered memories trickled through him, haunting and full of regret. He remembered the shoreline, holding up Jaskier as he suffocated on his own blood. The bard had been terrified. He’d been…he’d been something else entirely. There wasn’t a word for what he felt then, for what it turned into afterward. What was fear when it was overloaded with shame and self-reproach? When his hatred for himself grew with every revelation? When his understanding of how he’d almost killed his only friend, the only person who chose on the daily to put up with him, had finally cracked his control?

He pushed the man away, _hard_ , after the djinn. He couldn’t do that again. He couldn’t ride through forests with Jaskier’s blood on his hands. He couldn’t hear the strong, trained voice strain as it forced out words that broke his heart. He couldn’t see the bard suffer his mistakes and bleed for his errors.

Jaskier hadn’t stopped following him. And selfishly, he’d let him follow.

Geralt couldn’t bear the pain he brought upon the bard, but he couldn’t deny his heart’s brother.

There were bruising grips on his shoulders and he was pushed to the ground, kicked into place. He let them, swimming in his memories. Even that felt like a crime. He _had_ his memories, but had failed so fully in protecting the bard that the man didn’t have his own. This was why the Path was a solitary existence. Since the first Witcher had begun wandering the world, it had always been such. Because the threat of man was two-fold.

They could break them physically. They could break _worse_ if they became something other than strangers.

Vesemir’s words crested the next dark wave that swallowed his heart.

_“Things used to be simpler. Monsters were bad, humans good. Now, everything’s all confused.”_

And he was a monster.

The abrupt realization made him shiver and whine as a new blindfold was snugged down over his head. The fabric was rough, and it pulled at the delicate scabs on his facial injuries. The one across his eye hurt terribly, and the pain there reminded him that the wound had been caused by his silver sword.

He was a monster. Silver had cut his skin like a farmer’s shears through wool. It had burned like flames were licking over his nerves. It _still_ burned.

Just a monster.

When a club struck his skin, he didn’t react. Couldn’t. He was barely able to draw a breath past the shock and surprise and the deep humiliation of the fact that it had taken him more than a century to realize such a thing about himself.

What else but a monster would drag a brother across the Continent for its own selfish reasons? What but a masquerading human who allow such a defenseless, weak lark to fly in its monstrous shadow? What but a creature born of pain and suffering would wish such a destiny upon an innocent?

Blows fell, and he couldn’t bring himself to bare his teeth at his attackers, gag or no. His _monstrous_ , wolf-like fangs. He couldn’t open his cat-viper-beastly eyes beneath the blindfold. His white hair was shorter on the sides now; they’d shorn him like a sheep. Like an _animal_.

There was time unceasing, broken only by sloshing water he sucked through his gag and the differing smells on the other sides of sticks and clubs. He barely tracked any of it. The strange fog in his head made it impossible to do much but relive the agony of the Trials, the deaths of his brethren, the mistakes throughout his life. Geralt sunk beneath the waves of heat and dizzy agony, tossed about in their storm like a sparrow in a hurricane. He barely felt the constant, sickening burn from the tainted iron shackles. He may have dreamed. He may have seen Kaer Morhen again, strong and repaired and glorious. He may have seen Eskel’s face before he suffered under Deidre Ademeyn’s blade. He may have seen Lambert and Vesemir spar in the inner courtyard, all smiles and laughter. He may have seen Ciri, face unblemished, walk through Novigrad arm in arm with Triss and Yennefer, flowers in her hair. With every sight, his self-hatred and anger grew like a fire stoked with coal and oil. He didn’t deserve such visions.

Days passed, he knew that much. He could tell from the ease of strangeness against his thoughts, by the lack of distant hallucinations and worries. His thoughts grew easier to marshal, to control, and his rage simmered low but strong in his heart.

It was only with the strength borne of that utter anger that he managed to raise his head at the old smell of the shaman.

The elder was moving slowly but carefully, he could tell by sound, and he was alone but for the two usual guards. Jaskier was nowhere nearby, and his scent was stale on the man’s robes. Panic filtered through his chest, but he held it down as the gag and blindfold were wrenched carelessly from his face. Concussed, his eyes had to work harder than normal to focus, but when he finally managed to force six figures into three, Geralt noted that the shaman’s staff was bare of stones.

“You are awake, creature? We thought you’d perish from the fever that burned within these last few days. You are of a sort.”

There was no compliment in the cold words, and the Witcher only grunted under his breath and dropped his face again. The torchlight was like acid in his sight. Tildan didn’t move, but he did appear to despise the silence. “Your time grows short, monster, and thus I pray your answer has changed. Will you break your spell upon the bard?”

Refusing to move his eyes, his head still swimming and the world tilting in his view, Geralt managed to bring enough moisture forward to growl, “I cannot.”

Sighing but obviously expecting the answer, the shaman stated firmly, “You _will_ break the hold you have upon that young man. You must.”

Sick and pained and bleeding, Geralt still managed to note the desperate determination in the shaman’s words. Forcing his head up, no longer able to hide behind the lengths of hair that had previously fallen into his face, he growled, “Why must I?”

Tildan actually seemed to age ten years with the question, and he shrugged a shoulder while he gave the Witcher a dismissive wave of his hand. “You are but a beast.”

There was something terribly dark in the man’s movements, even darker than the tainted blood that flowed through Geralt’s veins, and he ground out again, “Why must I?”

The shaman had already turned to leave with his guard, but he stopped and seemed to consider the question. Finally, he waved his guard on and waited until he left and they were alone. Over his hunched back, he finally answered, “If the thrall does not break, then he is cursed, monster. He is a cursed man.” He turned slightly, fixing eyes that glittered in the torchlight falling upon him. “And you well know what we do to cursed men.”

Startled, Geralt ignored the pain that surged through him as he snapped, “I killed the Leshen. Your guardian – it’s dead. That tradition died with it.”

A glob of black blood flooded his mouth, and he spit it out, uncaring as it painted his chest with more gore, the unnatural whiteness of a broken fang hidden in the mess. Tildan sniffed at the display. “You are ignorant of our traditions, monster. As is your thrall. But his wounds have been treated with the blood of the woods, and it’s truly infused in him now. We will burn him atop a pyre of sacred wood, and he will arise as the new guardian.” He paused, then added, “If you will not break the thrall, that is.”

Everything clicked into place like a bolt of lightning from the sky. That odd odor from Jaskier’s bandages – he’d identified it the moment he’d smelt it. His gear had been covered in the Leshen’s sap, and he’d saved that knowledge, thinking to blackmail the shaman with his discovery that the anti-monster healer had been using the innards of monsters for his own purposes. The irony hadn’t been lost on him. But now, _everything_ changed.

“It wasn’t an old Leshen. It was…you _made_ it. You created it. With what, black magic?”

Tildan jabbed a finger at the Witcher. “Do not think to moralize to me, beast! Organic necromancy is one of the noblest arts!”

Burning from the inside out, Geralt groaned at the idiocy displayed before him.

“You couldn’t control it. It was ravenous, as all dead things are. It wanted life,” he realized aloud, squeezing his eyes shut. “Demanded it.”

Leaning against his staff, Tildan settled and answered quietly, “Yes. And I offered it only the wrong, the broken. They couldn’t do anything better in life than sate it.”

_Sometimes a flower is just a flower, and the best thing it can do for us is to die._

It was an old saying out of Aretuza. Geralt wondered, briefly, if the shaman had ever heard the phrase.

“You come from a long line of shamans who’ve done the same,” he realized under his breath, and Tildan didn’t deny it. “My family has protected this village for generations. Whenever a beast such as you kills our guardian, we create a new one. We’ve never fear of wolves or bears or bandits and their ilk.”

Coughing out another wave of blood, Geralt gasped for air and panted, “No…but you’ve enough death surrounding this place to host a mess of necrophages.” It was a trifle to the shaman, he knew, but he still had to say it. “So you feed the created Leshen any who cross your path and don’t conform to your belief system?”

Abruptly tired of the conversation, Tildan turned to take his leave. “Indeed. For the good of Ursten, as it always shall be. Release your thrall, monster. You have until sunset tomorrow.”

And then the world spun off into its odd eddies again.

* * *

Time was a strange construct. It bent and moved and swelled and ebbed without effort or permission. So it was that three days passed in a strange, hot blur.

Jaskier was far outside the world for most of it. Fever had taken him nearly as soon as they reached the hut. The wounds around his wrist and the carved lines in his right shoulder had festered somehow, even under the continued, diligent treatment of the shaman. So he slept and sweat and dreamed.

Oh goddess, did he dream. He dreamed and dreamed and it _didn’t stop_.

He dreamed of his throat closing, coughing up blood on his knees by a lake, strong arms wrapped around his shoulders and holding him against the spasms, a voice he knew would never crack nearly shattered with fear as it stumbled over his name.

He dreamed of three words landing a fist in his gut, the movement quick but not quick enough to hide the flash of golden eyes, the weariness and exhaustion and pain shining through like it was screamed from a mountaintop.

He dreamed of a town’s fear and horror and sorrow in the cold, and his succinct dismissal of it with three very different words that were almost overshadowed by a door slamming open and his own joyous laughter.

He dreamed of walking, running, being afraid of few things because there were two swords ready behind him.

He dreamed of harsh words tempered by half-hidden grins, of rabbit and pheasant cooking over an open fire while his lute sang in his hands and a gruff voice hummed along, almost but not quite unwillingly.

He dreamed of long winters bracketed by choked farewells and happy reunions, of wounds that bled black and red and his hands were covered in it sometimes, his fingers slowly growing sure in their treatment of slashes and punctures and snapping arrow shafts just above their heads.

He dreamed of spring and winter and fall, seasons running together like a long verse, music falling from his fingers in an unending stream while his lips moved over songs he wrote.

He heard words he didn’t know – names, places, running rivers and mountain ranges. Accents slipped in and out of thought. He smelled fire and felt air. There was warmth and ice and rage and contentment and the overwhelming feeling that _this was right, this was good_.

When he shuddered into wakefulness some midday, the sun blinding him through the window, there was so much confusion, so much uncertainty, that it gladly made its way out of him in the form of bile and acid. There was a hand on his back, careful and small, and it steadied him as he vomited into a ready bucket. When he collapsed back against the bed, and the bright light glinted off of red hair, he hazily frowned at the woman beside him.

“Triss?”

Why he said that name, he didn’t know. But the way the fair skin crinkled slightly and the hazel eyes tightened with a soft smile, he knew he’d gotten it right. Her hands pressed him back into the straw mattress and her palm was cool as it traced over his brow. He leaned into the touch, disoriented, everything in his head muddled and thick.

“You’ve had a time of it, haven’t you, bard?” Her voice was soft, quiet, and he swore her lips didn’t move as she spoke.

He tried to work moisture into his mouth to speak, but her fingers trailed down to his lips and hushed him gently.

“You have to rest, recover your strength. He’ll need you.” He blinked, asking with his eyes what he couldn’t say, and there was sadness in her gaze. “If you don’t yet remember, do not worry. But trust in yourself, Julian, and trust in the White Wolf. He will not bite.”

The mix of his true name and the odd term made something both terrible and calm rise through him, and she shook her head. “Keep the collar on him, though, for both your sakes. It may hurt him, but seeing you in pain hurts him worse. Do you understand?”

Frozen, Jaskier didn’t know how to respond to that, and her small smile was patient. “You know him, bard. You know you do. You must bide your time and escape from this place. Before it’s too late for either of you.”

The alarm in his face was obvious and she shook her head. “I wish I could help you more, but this is something I cannot heal. So sleep. Sleep, my friend. Sleep and then rise and _survive_.”

Her quiet tones echoed in his head, almost distorted, and he felt his eyes drifting shut against his will. Her fingers slipped from his lips and moved along his forehead, brushing away his sweaty bangs gently. He wanted to ask her so much, wanted to know why he felt fear and acceptance, wanted to know how he was supposed to perform such an impossible task.

But everything fell away into muted static.

And he didn’t dream.

* * *

The sound of nothing brought him from his meditation.

Before, there had been noises, a raft of them that had become the ballad of his own torment. Creaking chains, crackling torches, the too-fast thud of hearts poisoned by fear, faint drips of water slipping from stone onto mud. He had categorized all of them, counted them, a habit ingrained by a century of hard living and harder lessons.

Now? Nothing.

Dimly, he wondered if his hearing had been muffled by the overwhelming pressure in his head. He didn’t know how long he’d been strung up, feet chained to the rafters, the ends of his hair brushing the ground. It was long enough that his lungs felt tight and constricted by the weight of his organs pressing on them, making each shallow breath of air hard-fought and more gasping than the last. His own heart was thudding slower than usual, but it sounded strange, like a boulder falling down a cliff and striking every tree in its path. The press behind his eyes had forced some of the blood vessels there to yield, and if they hadn’t been hidden behind the ever-present blindfold, he knew that the whites of them would be a startling red.

He remembered one young man from Kaer Morhen, before the Trial of the Grasses, who’d sworn to everyone that he could stay inverted longer than the rest of them. He’d won that bet, lasting nearly two days before he’d seized and foamed at the mouth and had never awoken. After the mutations had flooded their systems, they’d all be tested that way again. He had lasted five and a half days, far longer than the other trainees, simply due to the second Trial he’d been put through.

But he’d never lost his senses during that test.

He felt more than heard the movement near him, and he blinked uselessly against the rough material around his head. But his gag had been removed at some point, so he opened his cracked lips and scented the air.

No smell. And no sound.

But there was the overpowering otherness of magic in the air.

Panting lowly, he struggled to sense more, but he was too restrained to do anything other than shift minutely against the chains. His wrists were manacled behind him, a length of cold iron running from his collar to the bindings and then on to the rafter above. He could feel himself swaying slightly, and he swallowed uncomfortably against the overwhelming helplessness he was faced with.

Then a soft, warm fingertip traced up his right shoulder, soothing and gentle, and he startled anyway.

“Easy, Wolf. You won’t do much but hurt yourself if you struggle.”

He froze, confused, and then suddenly relaxed into his bonds. Ignoring the taste of copper on the back of his tongue, he took as deep a breath as he could manage and coughed it out. “Triss?”

Her hand brushed against his cheek, then, cupping the uninjured side of his face and she gave a hiss of empathetic pain. It sounded distant and close, like an echo in his own head. “Peace. Try not to speak.”

But the urgency of the situation wasn’t lost on him for even a moment. The words were harder to order than he liked, and he went for brevity and clarity. “Get…get Jaskier out. He’s hurt, lost his memory.”

A second hand was suddenly at his neck, arresting his movement, and her touch was shockingly warm against the cold of the cellar. “Please, Geralt, stop talking. I know.” He felt the implications keenly, something icy and fearful taking up residence in his stomach. “You know…and you can’t do anything about it.” Breathed and nearly ragged with understanding, it wasn’t a question.

He heard her sigh in his head, and her fingers tensed against his skin. “I felt your distress, heard you say my name. But there’s something terribly wrong in this village, Geralt. I don’t think even Yennefer would be able to pass through the gates. How you did I’m not quite sure.”

His tongue felt heavy and large in his mouth, and he slurred slightly as he answered, “Shouldn’t have. Knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.” His voice was low with abuse and necessity, but she still shushed him. “I’ve checked on Jaskier. He’s injured but healing. He remembers enough to know he needs to escape from this place.”

Growling his frustration, Geralt knew his fangs were showing as he snapped, “You didn’t tell him to help me.” There was silence again, and his voice almost broke as he clenched his left hand into a tight fist. “Dammit, woman. _What_ did you _do_?”

Her voice wasn’t offended, but it was further away than before. “I’ve a fair debt to pay to you, Geralt. You know that.”

The taste of blood was stronger now, and he felt it drip out of his mouth and up his cheek as he sucked in air through his bared teeth. “Fuck your debt. He’ll be killed, Triss.”

She made another unhappy sound, but her hands didn’t move from his skin. “Worse than that, if you both don’t get out of here.”

What came up from his throat wasn’t a laugh, but it still shattered the simple defense he’d built against the agony in his system. Tensing and shivering at the burn that slunk down his system, the bindings on his ankles and wrists and arms and that fucking collar tightening with the movement, he gasped out his rage and refusal. “He doesn’t…doesn’t die. Not here. Not like this.”

He wanted to say more. Wanted to tell her that Jaskier would far outlive him, that he would make sure of it. He wanted to tell her that the bard would be protected behind his steel and silver as long as he had the strength and speed to wield them. He wanted to explain that there was nothing he wouldn’t do for the man, for his _friend_ , for his _brother_. But the words stuck in his chest, locked behind blood and an iron will. As much as he trusted Triss, she’d betrayed him before. Would do so again, if her need arose. He had to protect him.

Maybe sensing the dark path his thoughts had taken, the sorceress smoothed her fingers over the edge of the blindfold and brushed away his hair with a tender touch. “If you believe that, Wolf, then make it happen. Or you will both die here, lost to superstition and dark magic and fear. I cannot help you any further. You’re on your own.”

He felt her presence begin to dissipate, but there was strength in his bones that hadn’t been there before. “Not the first time,” he growled, and her laughter was soft and delicate around her response. “No, my dear White Wolf, it is not. But do your friends a favor and make it the last, hmm?”


	7. O Misty Eye

It was another day before Jaskier felt well enough to stand and move about the cabin on his own.

He was weak, timid and shaky like a fresh foal, and he lost his breath quickly. But the sharp wrongness in his back and wrist had dissipated, replaced with a dull throb that he could bear easily. And it didn’t matter. It was absolutely secondary to his thoughts and confusion and careful planning.

Jaskier hadn’t been tended to by Tildan since he’d awoken. He believed that was a blessing. The shaman had spent enough time around him to recognize the shift in his demeanor. Instead, some of the tavern maidens had taken turns bringing him food and checking his bandages, replacing them with shaky hands and watery smiles. He flirted with them as well as he could, bribing extra food and two travelling flasks from the inn’s supplies. He hoarded the dried meats and breads safely away in a cloak, and filled the flasks with water from the pitcher that was always present. If anyone noted his excessive appetite or thirst, they likely put it down to recovering from such a fever.

It didn’t much matter. The bard was moving with memory he didn’t have, hands sure and careful as they wrapped the food in small, tight bundles, protecting it from as much air as he was able. When night fell, he lit the dimmest candle he had and returned to the chest under the table. He sorted the gear on the floor, driven and nearly mindless with the utter routine of it. He took a handful of minutes to quietly unsheathe the shining silver sword and polish it clean, the act oddly profound, full of trust and gratefulness he didn’t recognize in himself.

It was only with the hyperaware hearing of someone fearing to be caught that he heard the steps approaching the cabin with heavy deliberateness. Shoving the gear under the bed and hurriedly sliding the candle atop the beside table, he sat with careful movements, wincing slightly at the pull in his back, and waited.

It was only a few seconds, but the mind works fast. And he wondered, shockingly, how he’d managed to get himself in this situation.

Before, anxiety and worry had been nearly choking him on the regular; now there was something cold and shrewd sitting atop those feelings, weighing them down with startling effectiveness. He remembered his life at Oxenfurt University and the darker years that preceded it. He knew he’d spent his fair share of time dodging angry husbands, brothers, nephews and sons. He’d had to successfully duel for his honor and sometimes his life on a number of occasions. He had a particularly memorable scar under his collarbone from his thinnest victory, and he hated the way it ached on cold, damp mornings.

But he had survived because he had been trained, and trained well. His father had seen to that. And though he had the distant understanding that he hadn’t used much of that training in maybe decades, there was one thin glimmer of bright lining in the clouds. With his memory snuffed out or torn away or hidden in shadows, there were far fewer years between that training and his mind. Jaskier could remember the feel of steel in his hand, callouses over his palms instead of on his fingers, the smell of the courtyard and the scrape of blunted tips against his leather jerkin.

He didn’t know why or even how he was so calm. The absolute terror of the time before his fever seemed to have burned away, the lingering effects brushed out of existence by a ghostly hand on his brow, the temperance of his attitude solidified by the order, the unvarnished plea, to survive, and do so well enough for two.

Jaskier remembered his father’s tone when he abdicated his title, the harsh dismissal of his desires and dreams spurring his heels hard into his horse’s sides. The words themselves were lost to shuttered pain, but he remembered the absolute, unequivocal disbelief in his success.

Well, here he would succeed. Not for the monst – no, Geralt? – and not for some nearly forgotten specter of his past. No, he would succeed here, if for nothing more than the recovery of his memory and the unravelling of the mystery surrounding him and the creature. Silencing the old criticisms was a minor, wholly pleasing, but unnecessary objective.

There was no warning knock this time, but Jaskier didn’t really expect one. The door swung open slowly and loudly, and he didn’t have to reach far for the confusion that crossed his face. He expected one of the tavern maids. Maybe even Tildan, if the man was done relegating him to a passing concern only. He didn’t look too hard into the fact that his heart leapt and not with terror at the thought that the white-haired warrior would be on the other side of the door.

No, it was Med and Hather. They didn’t speak much, only Hather inquiring after the state of his health, and he offered a shoulder that Jaskier gladly used. It would save his strength, and maybe present a different visage to the townsfolk than was truth.

They escorted him along the lighted road to the end of the lane, and he could see that the entire town was turned out for whatever event was forthcoming. Jaskier caught sight of a tall, solid post in the middle of the road, the shackles already hanging from it swaying gently in the night breeze, and he shifted deeper into his doublet. It was an old pillar, dry and stripped of bark, and he had no illusions as to what – or who? – would soon be bound to it.

He was led to Tildan, who was leaning on his yew staff as usual, but there was an energy in his old bones that made Jaskier hesitate in his greeting. If the shaman noted his stumble, he didn’t comment on it.

“Child, it gladdens me to see you nearly whole, if not in spirit. I apologize for my absence; there were concerns that had to be tended to,” he said calmly, and there didn’t seem to be terribly too much apology in his voice. But Jaskier shrugged it away. “I’m sorry, actually, for becoming such a burden. I am truly grateful for the kindness of your people.” His words were honest; he would be dead without the villagers, and that was something he wouldn’t be able to willingly ignore. Then he asked, “Have you spoke to the monster again? Did it…did it say anything about releasing me? Did it say _anything_?” The bard knew his true question had shined through clearly: did it seem remorseful for the situation it had placed the man in?

There was open condensation on Tildan’s face as he shook his head with a tutting noise, his aged hand carding through Jaskier’s hair. The bard felt a tremor shake through him under his skin, and it wasn’t pleasant.. “Oh, sweet child, these things are _monsters_. They don’t pity. They don’t regret. They don’t _feel_. They spread death and pain. They are harbingers of destruction and chaos. Speaking as a man to them does nothing but get you under thrall and in soul-debt to demons. You must address them in the only language they know.”

Jaskier blinked at the coldness in the shaman’s voice, so unlike the warmth and gentle help he’d displayed towards the bard so many times, and he unconsciously pulled his jacket sleeve down over the thick bandages on his right wrist.

But he nodded like he understood, even though, if he was honest with himself, he didn’t.

Tildan took his acceptance at face value and turned to the rest of those gathered. He raised his staff slightly for silence, and his voice warbled with his years as he spoke.

“My friends, we come together to confront this evil as one person, with one mind. The creature has denied even the most fervent demands to release this young man from its control. During our recourse, I discovered hidden magic in its possessions, glass tubes of dark poisons that would kill any of us in a blink!”

Jaskier felt some strange, hidden part of his mind suddenly and absolutely agree that such a statement was true. He knew it to be so. But he bit his lip and dropped his eyes, keeping his silence. Tildan held up a hand, the shining clear bottle in his fingers nearly glowing in the firelight beside him. He shook it as he spoke, and the bard felt an odd thrill run through him as the red liquid inside seemed to spark and churn of its own will.

“These are the potions that remove the glamour of man from its form! These are the drops that strip its farce from the world! These are the vials that bring the monster to light, in its true and terrible form!” He slammed his staff into the ground, and torches behind him moved, a mass of the menfolk striding quickly into the center of the square to the post.

Children screamed. A woman fainted. Two men turned and heaved into the tall grass behind them.

Jaskier stared.

The monster was being dragged along the road by five chains, one at its collar, one on each limb. Only protected from the cold and muck of the ground by its trousers, its feet slipped in the mud unsteadily. Its pale torso was on vivid display, the scars and marks that the bard had studied almost hidden in the dark coloration of bruises and dried blood that spanned its skin. Its dirty hair had been tied back, the long lengths along the sides of its head shaved away to completely expose its face.

It was _terrifying_.

Its eyes were of the darkest, blackest pitch, and thin veins of inky blood crossed its white skin like rivers in the earth. Its fangs were on full display due to the unjointed snaffle bit that had been forced behind them, the left canine broken in half but still sharper and longer than a man’s. The leather straps that held the bit were pressed firmly against the longest cut on its face. There, and where the shackles dug into its skin, and where some lucky strike had broken the heat seal on its flank, it bled a nauseating, otherworldly mix of black and red.

The menfolk brought it to a quick, hard stop by the post, and it fell to its knees heavily. They shouted at each other and hauled on the chains, immobilizing it without resistance. It was heaving, lines of ribs expanding and contracting in an uneven pattern. It reached for its right arm with its left and both limbs were immediately pulled away. A full shiver coursed down its spine, the muscles in its back flexing, and it dropped its head and vomited past the bit. Something high pitched, something animalistic and agonized, rose from its chest with the act, and it hung against its bindings as it retched again and again.

Jaskier couldn’t fight the way his body twisted two different directions at once.

His feet took him a step back, but his right hand raised of its own volition, fingers grasping the air towards the creature. He had the presence of mind to realize he should be grateful that Tildan didn’t appear to notice his reaction, but that was where rational thought fled.

This…this was _wrong_.

Beast or man, monster or human, to willingly place anything in this much pain was _wrong_.

But he was frozen, held in place by fear and confusion that wasn’t easily cowed under his training as a Viscount. The hand that had raised abruptly pressed back to his side, and he felt the itch of new scabs under the bandage. The cool air made an uncomfortable sweat rise on the back of his neck, and he trembled from neck to tailbone. He was distantly aware that the shaman was speaking and waving his staff, and he noted, oddly, that the stone atop it had been replaced. The previous smokey quartz point was gone, and in its place was a dark black hunk of shimmering rock.

The color was so like the monster’s blood.

When the men moved again and hauled it against the post, chains and shackles wrapped and clicking into place, it made that keening sound again. It was bound with its arms above its head, elbows slightly bent, its back presented to the town. Jaskier swallowed bile as he realized the scourge he’d seen in the cellar was now in another man’s hand. He didn’t know this one, didn’t recognize him even in passing, but the look on his face was utterly cold and brutal. His long coat and armor were unfamiliar, the strange symbol on the left breast that was half staggered line, half broken eagle proving him an outsider. But his grip around the long scourge was sure, and he didn’t seem to hesitate in the face of his duties.

“We’ve seen this creature, the trueness of its condemned soul, for ourselves,” Tildan was saying, Jaskier’s hearing suddenly clicking back in place. “Such monstrous features reveal the depths of its evil. Its very existence blasphemes the natural law!” Someone murmured an agreement nearby, but the bard didn’t try to identify the man.

When Tildan tilted his staff, and the newcomer raised his arm, Jaskier found he couldn’t look away.

The leather lines raised in the air like a snake preparing to strike, and the thick, weighted knots at their ends snapped forward at the punisher’s command. The first blow seemed to take the monster by surprise. It stiffened, reared and arched its back, and it tossed its head back with a gasp. The next, it was prepared for. It braced its arms against the post as well as it could, pressed its forehead into the wood, and the trembling in its legs ceased all at once.

The flail fell, repeatedly, unending, and Jaskier found himself moving around the edge of the lighted circle. Each snap of leather on skin felt like an explosion in his ears, and as the sound grew wet and sharp, it stung his mind. The cracking of the scourge was in line with his heartbeat, and his sight wavered as he stepped carefully between villagers. He mindlessly timed his movements to the falling of the leather straps, realizing distantly that everyone gathered in the torchlight was just as gruesomely enraptured as he was.

The overwhelming understanding that there was something more than…than thrall, than spell, than pain and disorder, between him and the creature, it stoked a fury within him he didn’t recognize. If this was all for his sake, he didn’t want it. Had never wanted it. Would deny to the sky and the earth the spilling of blood in his name. He hadn’t been asked his will, not by the shaman or the villagers or anyone involved.

None except the monster seemed to care his thoughts on anything. Even when it had told him to leave, it hadn’t actually ordered him to do such. Suggested, firmly stated, advised clearly – sure. But there had been no force. Just a tired consideration for the bard’s welfare.

The bard had come all the way around to the other side of the post, the disturbing image of the monster’s flayed back hidden from view. But he could see its face, now, or at least part of it. The more injured side had been spared the post, the inflamed wound seeping black blood and yellow pus in nearly equal parts. Hiding a wince, he still couldn’t stop his sharp inhalation as he understood, abruptly, just how beaten and weak the creature was.

The sound he made was negligible. It was hidden in the gasps and cries of the people surrounding him, in the swishing crack of leather on blood and skin, in the murmured prayers to deities he didn’t know being raised to the heavens.

But still, it was heard.

In the breath of time between one strike and another, it opened its eyes, and unfailingly, immediately fixed the blackened hollows on Jaskier’s face. He had the presence of mind to realize that this empty stare didn’t afear him as much as the one from the dead deer hanging from the village’s entry. But maybe it was because the gaze wasn’t entirely empty.

In the depths of those voids, there was a thin ring of gold, sharply pointed, narrowed and focused. That color flashed in the torch light, and the bit in its teeth creaked as it clenched its jaw hard. Abruptly, Jaskier found himself flashing the thing a feral smile of his own. This thing – Geralt of Rivia, the White Wolf, the holder of his memories – wasn’t beaten. Not by a long shot.

“Don’t give up, Wolf,” he murmured softly, ducking his head to hide the movement of his lips against his palm. The word spilled from his mouth without a thought. “Save your strength. We’ll make it through this yet.”

He risked a glance back up at the creature, worried he’d spoken too quietly. But there was a strange, faint mix of weary understanding and fierce fondness on its face. It blinked at him once, the edge of its lip easing up in a slight, wild quirk of a something that was either a smile or a grimace. There was some familiarity in the act, and Jaskier swallowed back the rightness and unease the swirled up through his chest.

He remembered the words of the redheaded woman in the depths of his fevered dreams, the assurance that the White Wolf wouldn’t bite.

Jaskier darkly hoped it would devour their enemies, though.

* * *

He wasn’t surprised to be left on the post.

None wanted to come near his toxic blood, not without glove or gauntlet, and they weren’t willing to sully their gear with his life fluid. It was far easier to test his chains with rough hands, tighten the bit in his mouth to cutting, and return to their warm homes without fear of his escape. The post was sunk deep into the ground and the bindings were firm and there was little he could do against any of it for the moment. It didn’t matter to them that he had vomited and bled enough of the potions for his eyes to return to their usual gold, outer edges blood-red from busted vessels, or that his skin had grown slightly more tan and warm. They had refused to even acknowledge it and instead had left him to the forced solitude of his open prison. At least, left alone, he was able to sort through his agony and worry and the number of other unfamiliar emotions that had bubbled up through him.

But the fear and stress that had poured through him as they forced potions down his throat was absent.

There had been a long minute, a _hard_ and _terrifying_ moment, between his skin paling and his eyes darkening, that he’d worried they’d take the last one and tip it into his mouth as well. He had seen the other two decoctions only briefly – Thunderbolt and Noonwraith – and the third he’d left in his pack was Swallow. Healing tonic though it was, it would kill him if given atop the other two. That had been an agonizing wait as he was wrestled to the ground and the effects were observed. If the shaman hadn’t been satisfied by his changed appearance, he likely would’ve unwittingly ordered his death.

As it was, the visage he’d presented to the town had apparently been monstrous enough.

Resting his forehead on the post, he kept his knees locked and relished the dimmed sensation caused by the strangled blood flow. It eased the agony in his back and side, nearly numbed the constant ache in his arm, and quieted the loud pain on his face to whispers. While not a long-term solution, it was all he could do for himself for the moment.

It also gave him time to think about the strange interaction he’d had with Jaskier during his flogging.

He hadn’t doubted Triss when she’d said the bard had remembered enough to realize the danger he faced. He wondered if she had something to do with that, if she had influenced his dreams or pushed thoughts into his head. But Triss was not an oneiromancer, and though he’d felt the telltale tingle of Yennefer’s magic in the communication, proving the more powerful sorceress had been involved in reaching him, he doubted she had done so, either. How the bard had broken through the stranglehold on his memories, Geralt didn’t know. Perhaps from the dimeritium still choking his own system – maybe it was weakening the overall constriction on his mind. Maybe from the natural miracle of the human body, how it managed to overcome even the most trying of injuries in some cases. Maybe whatever strangeness in Jaskier that gave him his long life was breaking the rebound spell.

Whatever the cause, he had been drowning beneath the cheers and screams and his own thrumming nerves, and the bard’s soft gasp had been a lifeline he hadn’t known he could grab. Years to listening to the man sing and hum and talk – gods, he could talk a chort to death – made him overly sensitive to his particular voice, and he’d picked it out of the crowd easily. When he’d opened his charcoal eyes and Jaskier had been staring right at him, the bard hadn’t flinched, hadn’t moved, and his face had been…well, yes, disgusted and terrified and horrified. But it was clear that the emotions hadn’t been towards Geralt the monster but towards the townspeople around him.

That had been unexpected.

Even though an escape plan was still questionably stable in his mind, Geralt had never considered that the bard would willingly come with him. Instead, he’d figured he would arrive at the point of driving the man away from the town by word or deed, or he’d have to practically kidnap him into the wilds. After Triss’ visit, that concern had dwindled but still remained present. After all, the shaman had spent a significant amount of time and effort putting misinformation in the younger man’s head. Even though he’d tried to combat what he could of the falsehoods, Geralt knew his attempts had fallen short. He was a weapon, an accurate and lethal instrument against darkness. He had no skill or talent for speech.

But maybe, Jaskier did indeed remember enough to where he didn’t _need_ speech.

Over their travels, Geralt’s rigid soul had been deliberately but inexorably eased open. It had taken years, and fights, and wounds and fevered dreams where whispered terrors spilled from his cracked lips. It had taken harsh words and stumbled apologies, ageless eyes crinkling under brown curls or white locks, fanged and fangless smiles and smirks revealing what couldn’t or wouldn’t be said. It had taken one delicate person looking at him, black-eyed from potions and unchanging after a century, and calling him _human_ in both words and actions. It had taken twenty years of the lack of the smell of fear on the bard for Geralt to start to believe it, even if only by a bit.

So maybe that was what Jaskier was remembering.

He didn’t know, and he couldn’t puzzle it out in his pounding head. The Noonwraith decoction had removed most of the confusion and fuzziness from his concussion but had done nothing for the pain itself. The Thunderbolt potion had given him nearly enough strength to dent the steel in his mouth between his teeth. He would trade both of them for one sip of the Swallow that the shaman had raised like a flag. The wrongness in his side and behind his ribs had grown, stealing anything more than a shallow breath from his lungs. His arm had been twisted and wrenched so many times in so many directions that it was a constant source of white agony against the muddled canvas of his body’s hurts. The slice on his face pounded in time with the feel of his heightened pulse in his back. Small burns from the forest’s fire shot little shivers of pain whenever he moved. There was little he could do about any of it except pray that his friend wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Worse, even.

And then, abruptly, the bard was _there_.

He’d come up beside Geralt with quiet steps and held breath, moving in time to the distant laughter echoing from the lit tavern. There was a thickness about his body that spoke of unmeasured armor, and a long, thin glint of metal was slung low around his waist.

He wasn’t alone.

Geralt blinked hard, trying to verify the sight before him, and his eyes widened even against the swelling in his face.

Jaskier had Tildan in front of him, a familiar dagger sure in his hand where it was pressed firmly against the shaman’s exposed throat. The elder was silent and seething, his eyes flashing in the dim light spilling from the dying torches, and his hands were empty.

“Key, old man,” the bard hissed quietly, the edge of the blade shifting slightly, and Tildan didn’t move. “You foolish child, I will not release him!”

His voice was brought low by the pressure of the blade, and the shaman glared at Geralt with hatred. “You chose instead to raise the thralldom to full force, beast? You could not escape otherwise? How pathetic,” he spat, and the Witcher shook his head slowly against the post, unable to respond.

But whatever was driving Jaskier, it was angry and violent. A trickle of blood slipped down the wrinkled skin below the dagger, and he whispered harshly, “You do not speak to it. You’ve spoken enough for the both of us, Tildan. Produce the key or I will show you exactly what this monster’s travelling companion can do to a human.”

He tried not to, but Geralt still flinched at the words. There was no warmth in them, no gentleness, and he knew that what he had seen and heard during the flogging was nothing more than a trick of light and his desires.

But then the younger man looked at him for the first time since his unannounced arrival, and there was something desperate in his gaze. It begged him silently, though for what Geralt didn’t know. But he’d never been one to deny anything of the bard, so he shifted enough to relax his stance, and he nodded slightly. Apparently satisfied, Jaskier turned his attention to the shaman, who had finally moved one hand slowly to his robe. He palmed the key placed there and held it up, mouth already going again.

“You are losing your one chance at freedom, child. This creature will have you at its beck and call for the rest of your days should you leave with it.”

Geralt wanted to deny that, wanted to explain the shaman’s true intent for the bard, but the bit in his mouth prevented him from doing more than stiffening in disagreement. Jaskier didn’t seem to care about the man’s words, nonetheless, and he simply swiped the proffered key and started to work at the Witcher’s left manacle one-handed. The other held the dagger still and sure at the old man’s throat, and nothing changed until the creaking metal finally gave way.

As his arm dropped, numb and nearly boneless from muscle spasms and gravity, Geralt saw the tells for the movement before it happened. And as Tildan spun and a dark blade appeared in his hand, he lunged towards the two as much as he was able and grabbed the shaman’s robe with a stuttering grip. It was enough, though, to haul him back toward the post bodily and press his whole form against the trembling man. Tildan was pinned between the rough wood and Geralt’s considerable weight, the two of them facing each other. The black dagger he held was clenched tightly, and his fingers were ground into the hilt with Geralt’s own grip. The blade was dangerously angled, the tip just an inch away from the Witcher’s damaged flank, but it was unmoving.

Jaskier inhaled sharply at the flurry of movement, but didn’t waste anymore time. With the shaman controlled, he immediately reached for the second binding. There was still metal encircling Geralt’s biceps and ankles, as well as his throat, but they were untethered. He left them alone for the moment. Hissing as his right arm fell free without support, Geralt didn’t move from his position, choosing instead to stay where he was, letting his golden eyes burn into the shaman’s, all manner of death and pain he could imagine swimming in his gaze.

Lithe fingers moved across the back of his head, and he managed to constrain the automatic recoil. Moments later, the leather holding the bit was loosened, and his jaw ached like nothing he’d felt before as he worked to push it from his mouth. But those fingers moved again, this time where he could see them, and they eased the metal from behind his teeth. He couldn’t help the low groan that crossed his lips as he tried and failed to work the overall twinging from the hinges of his bones.

“Easy, Wolf,” the bard murmured quietly, and Geralt exhaled silently with relief. He could _hear_ the familiarity in Jaskier, even though it didn’t present itself in any way but his tone. So he locked his knees again, put as much strength as he could into the hand restraining the dagger, and forced himself to delve into the well of energy the Thunderbolt had provided.

As he did, the bloody whites of his eyes turned an odd grey color, though didn’t go fully black, and his skin paled as his heart slowed. “You’ve a plan?” he growled, refusing to turn his attention from the shaman in case he had another weapon. Tildan glowered, unusually silent, and Jaskier’s answer was sharper than he expected.

“In a moment,” he bit out, and his hands moved quickly and surely in the tight space between the wood and the shaman. Within a minute, he had divested Tildan of his blade and strung him up in the same bindings he’d released Geralt from. Without hesitation, he also wrestled the unjointed snaffle bit into place, forcing the metal into the old man’s mouth, not bothering to wipe the bloody saliva and acid from it. He wrenched the leather tightly, as tight as it had been on the Witcher’s face, and blood flowed freely from the corners of his lips.

All this, Geralt watched with distant shock. He swayed on jelly limbs two feet away, but it felt like the entirety of the Continent separated him and his bard. The level of savage movement in Jaskier’s hands was… _uncomfortable_ to witness. The other man had never shown this level of violence or grudge, not even upon Geralt himself during his more trying, emotionally-repressed days. But here he was, forcing an elderly man into tight bindings, drawing blood, his gaze sharp and full of rage.

The shame from before rose within him again, nearly sweeping aside his tenuous hold on consciousness, and Geralt swallowed a whine. This was _his_ fault. All of it.

The shaman was trussed and silent, though not comfortably in any measure, and Jaskier took a step back, his shoulders finally slumping as he slid his silver dagger into his belt. He glanced at Geralt for a moment before turning his attention back to the elder.

“We will not kill you, Tildan,” Jaskier finally said lowly, and his voice was deadly calm. “You and your town saved my life, and many of you were kind.” He touched the hilt of his rapier like a reminder, but then he shook his head.

“But your treatment of the Wolf has removed any chance of mercy from me.” His words were darker than the night they stood within. “I promise you this: I will gut you in song. I will damn you with every word I’ve ever learned. I will slaughter the footprint of your forefathers so fully that none will dare come near you again.”

He paused, scowled, and then leaned forward slightly. “And if you ever raise a hand to another being, human or otherwise, as you’ve done to the Wolf, as you no doubt planned to do to me, I will bring the entirety of the evil you believe lies upon me to your doorstep.”

Tildan blinked, eyes wide, and he shook his head and grumbled and grunted something unintelligible through the metal in his mouth. But Jaskier just shrugged and murmured, “I’m sorry, old man. But you’re making no sense. You sound…like an _animal_.”

Then he twisted towards Geralt, his face stern and focused but seasons warmer than it had been, and he gestured in the direction of the main gate. “After you, Wolf.” The fact that neither hand drifted towards the dagger or thin sword at his side as he spoke made something old and abused thaw in Geralt’s chest. It made his throat tighten beneath the dimeritium collar, and robbed even the barest ability to speak. So he inclined his head slightly and turned.

His feet nearly immediately went out from under him, and the bard was suddenly there, bracing him with both arms. Vision going white, black stars bursting against the nothingness, Geralt couldn’t find the voice to cry out at the pressure on his wounds. He could feel the press of armor and metal against his skin, and he shivered at the sensation. Above his own ragged breathing, he could hear Jaskier’s rapid heartbeat.

Above that, voices. Close, confused, angry.

And then someone screamed.


	8. Stand By

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ***Short chapter to let you all know I’m alive. Yes, I’m working on this story. Class and work and family emergencies haven’t been kind.***

Jaskier wasn’t sure why he’d been left alone since being escorted back to Tildan’s hut, and he wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

The whole of the village had been…well, _jubilant_ following the public flogging of the monster. Whether they believed they’d beaten it into full submission, or it was just a natural high from the adrenaline of the act, there was no denying the joy and humor that suddenly pervaded the streets. He couldn’t even pretend to be so happily affected, so he wasn’t surprised by the lack of invitation to the gathering at the inn. Apparently they were heading to raise toasts to the deliverer of the punishment – Witch Hunter, he’d heard the term a few times – and that suited him just fine.

Because the way Tildan had looked at him after the beating made his skin crawl. It reminded him of the first time he’d been hauled into the dark cellar, how the shaman had looked at the monster. It reminded him of the time he’d watched a worker survey a snake in the gardens to determine if it was better to strike it down then or later, when it was warm and tired. It was calculating and cold and dangerous.

No, they had to leave. Now.

The fact that he didn’t pause when adding the creature to his escape plan didn’t surprise the deeper parts of him. He knew now, without a doubt, that there was no thrall between them. There was something else, and there was definitely something wrong, but whatever magic existed there wasn’t what everyone thought. He’d suspected it even before the red-haired mirage had slipped through his dreams. Now, though, he _knew_.

There was no anger in the creature’s face during its humiliating, painful assault. If he’d simply been a thrall, there would have been rage. There would have been unmasked anger at the fact that he wandered free and relatively hale while his ‘master’ had been chained and whipped. There wouldn’t have been concern and care and not a small amount of relief. And there certainly wouldn’t have been fondness and understanding. Jaskier was a master at reading the emotions and body language of those before him. Training or no, he had a natural aptitude for it. His ability was nearly empathic. He didn’t doubt those skills now.

Shut into the hut, he moved quickly.

He tested the door first – not locked or barred. Then he moved to the crate of gear under the far table once more. His movements were slightly clumsy due to pain but no less hurried as he shoved most of the items into Roach’s saddlebags he’d requested from the stable. Everything fit seamlessly, as he expected. There was even a slight bow in the outward edge of one that fit the rounding of his lute perfectly. He swallowed and stared at it for a moment as he rubbed his fingers over the smooth material. It would have taken dozens of rain showers over the leather, weakened and then dried to firmness by the sun, for such a modification to happen naturally.

How long had he travelled with the white-haired creature?

Swallowing back the unanswered question, he finished packing most of the gear and then carefully wrapped the Wolf’s Head in a cloth without touching it. He pocketed that, determined to keep such an oddity safe, and then pulled a clutch of items from under the bed. There was a rapier – gifted to him by Med after his disastrous foray into the cellar by himself – and a dark cloak; this had been from Hather, who worried he was cold in the hut. Laying them both aside for the moment, he awkwardly pulled on the black and silver studded breastplate from the chest. It fit him terribly, and the broken plating pushed against his side. But he filled out the gaps less than its owner, so it didn’t break or bruise his skin like it did on the creature. Strapping on the sword and swirling the cloak into place over everything, he quickly checked his gear. As the last piece of preparation, he slid the silver dagger with the engraved wolf into a notch on his belt. It fit perfectly.

Everything was sound.

He thought that most people would probably wait, at this point. Wait for the village to sink into their drinks, to see nothing but the bottom of their mugs and the tavern maiden with the next full jug. If he had the time, he would’ve done alike. Instead, he remembered the blood coating the creature’s side, the gasping, struggling quality of its breaths, the dark strangeness of color and sensation that emanated from his shackles. And he knew he couldn’t wait.

Slinging the heavy saddlebags over his shoulders, staggering briefly as he overbalanced with the expected surge of pain, Jaskier left the candles lit and the shutters pulled and slipped out of the hut.

It was a nerve-wracking walk to the stable, but he was accosted by none on his trek. Even the stable hand was somewhere within the tavern. The four mounts within were quiet and paid him little mind, save for the one he’d come for. Roach looked at him and chuffed softly, nudging the saddlebags and his chest with deep breaths. If he didn’t know better, he’d say the mare was searching for the one whose scent more heavily permeated the gear. He soothed her gently with a few quick pats and let her snag a carrot from his flat hand to keep her occupied. He was quick but thorough as he raised her tack and secured it properly. The wispy memory of the creature doing the same before the strange healer-priestess made him grit his teeth in a tight smile.

If all went well, he would be able to ask about that odd event later.

Finished with Roach, he turned to the other three horses and hesitated, fingering his dagger. He had considered several ways of handling this particular problem on his way to the stable without success. Two of the horses seemed fleet, one mare and one stallion, and when the stallion shifted in place, he saw studs on one shoe. They were obviously trained horses, their gear fit for racing across mud and slick grass. He checked Roach’s shoes quickly; hers were flat and heavy, made to support her and her rider on long, unending travels across mountains and through forests. She wouldn’t outrun any pursuers. Killing the horses wasn’t an option – they’d make too much noise.

“Hmm…what to do with you, my friends,” he murmured quietly, and he stroked Roach’s mane mindlessly. Then he glanced at the third beast in the stable. It was an old mule, and there was grey in its brown mane and lightly sunken pits over its dark eyes. An old wound on its side had been scarred over for so long that it had turned white and its coat had grown nearly to cover it. “But you’ve seen better days, haven’t you?” Jaskier asked rhetorically.

Minutes later, he’d snugged some borrowed chains around the necks of the three mounts, securing them all together and in place with an open lock he’d found. He suffered only a shallow bite from the stallion when he came too close to its face. Next to the lock was a set of keys that seemed to match; he dropped them into the feed bag closest to the door. He was fairly certain that would at least slow down anyone coming after them.

“Sorry, but it’s better than dying chasing us,” he whispered as he turned back to Roach. She was nibbling at the last crumbles of her carrot from the ground, and her ears twitched at his approach. Grabbing the reins under her head, he carefully edged out of the hut, his head on a swivel, certain that someone would be leaving the tavern at the very moment he hit the road.

No one did.

The sounds from within the building were loud and merry, and he felt his nose wrinkle in disgust. But his steps were quick and light as he hurried towards the main gate. Above him, he saw the massive deer head still in place, its hollowed eyes seeming to follow him. The velvet upon its rack seemed just as wet as the last time he’d noted it, and he shied away from the dripping blood. A few meters outside the gate was a signpost, ‘Ursten’ writ large on one flat board, and ‘Lucian’s Mill’ painted on an angled board pointed north. Tethering the mare to the post with a slipknot, he patted her on the cheek gently.

“Please…please wait for us,” he begged softly, and she mouthed his cloak without teeth.

Steeling himself, Jaskier turned back to the path and forced his feet to move forward.

He’d no intention of leaving the creature. None. But there was a weight upon him that had faded the moment he passed out of the town proper. It took effort to force himself back through the gates, back into the dead gaze of the mounted deer. The crush against his heart seemed to return in double when his feet hit the stone road, and he sucked in a breath through his teeth. His feet were faithful to his purpose, though, and he moved silently up the road.

The bard hadn’t quite figured out the best way to release the creature – or even exactly how he was supposed to escape with his current limitations – and he felt sweat trickle down the edges of his sideburns. Something inside of his chest was twisting and tugging hard at him as he strode quickly through the darkness. The concept of leaving the monster was both appealing and dismaying, making something behind his lungs buck and twist like a living, breathing thing. The pull to the town was like rolling in a roaring river: what was up, what was down, confusion and light and dark ruling all. It made his palms itch and he squeezed his hands into tight fists, fighting down the feeling.

No, he didn’t owe the monster. He didn’t know it. He didn’t deserve the fear and pain and tumbling roar of uncertainty within him. He had done nothing to earn such a poor blessing.

But words he’d thought hadn’t registered in his mind abruptly surged to the forefront, bringing him to a quick and graceless halt.

In the cellar, when that wave of agony had surged and crested over him, in between his gasping breaths and the smack of stone on flesh, there were words, words spoken in a tone unlike anything he could recollect hearing, and they made him tremble in place: _“Jaskier…I’m sorry.”_

Eyes blown wide and staring at nothing, caught by his own mind in the dangerous open light of a torch, the bard’s entire form shivered like a dying thing and then went stock still. He didn’t know why the softly murmured phrase brought him to a standstill. He couldn’t remember the last time such simple words had affected his mind so. He couldn’t understand the strange rush of fondness and concern that ebbed through him at the memory. There were visual flashes in his gaze, hidden memories breaching the false walls of his mind for a moment: dragons, floating spectres, wolves and wargs, all painted over with the same emotions brought forth by the quiet, agonized apology.

Straightening as his breath came rushing back through his lungs, Jaskier exhaled silently and ran a finger over the stretch of skin above his lips, coming back damp. Uneasy sweat began to bead on his forehead as well. There was so much wrong with his world at the moment that he could scarce believe it was his.

Then, abruptly, there was movement a few torches away. Familiar, though recent. Facing away, moving slowly, staff tapping along the packed dirt like a dying drum.

Energy and purpose suffusing his being, Jaskier strode forward with grace and silence he barely recollected. There would be no dawn for this tale.

No. Simply a midnight’s end in the depths of a faithless town.


End file.
